Run, rabbit, run

[tinstar]

Who: Raylan and you!
What: The September Event
When: Month long catch all
Where: Milton

Content Warnings: NPC Death, gore, gun violence

[Ping me on discord or plurk figmented if you want a specific starter, or create your own wildcard in the chaos!]

Around town - Pre-event

Finally, the slow ache of Milton was really starting to wear Raylan down. It had taken a few months, a few kicks in his metaphorical gut that he'd weathered graciously, but even he was starting to get restless with his busywork and sleep. He was outside more often than he was indoors, a thick scarf tucked into his buttoned up wool jacket as he travels around delivering corded bundles of firewood to a few other houses and then finally, the Community Hall. While he's there, he goes ahead and posts up a message on the community board, taking a few minutes to read over any new messages posted before he and Goose, the wolf pup that is now a permanent fixture at his side, go back about their day.

Painful Reminders

The buzz of voices, of static maybe, of something out there is what draws Raylan out night after night to stare into the sky at the dancing lights that would have otherwise amazed him for their beauty. Part of him was sure he was going insane again, expecting Arlo to show up from behind his shoulder to whisper dark nothings in his ears again, to send more terrors into his nightmares. But the longer he stood out there fiddling with the silver horseshoe ring on his right hand ring finger, the clearer the voices got, and after a while, he just... closes his eyes and bathes in the familiar, far away voices. Pretends, for a moment, that he was that 8 year old boy again, listening to his mother and Aunt talk in the kitchen over the smells of fried chicken and cornbread - his favorite meal.

His throat tightens up and he focuses on breathing as the looming silence of the night, somehow with its own weight underneath the voices he knew weren't really there, pressed in on him like it aimed to force him to speak, to answer back.

It got worse after the first night - he woke up with an ultrasound in his hands, - Girl, Hawkins  it read in fine print at the top - the same one that he would be found standing out with the next night and the night after that, thumb working over again and again, soaking in the painful loneliness of his life, his job, the guilt of the danger they would both be in, the shit father he was sure he was gonna be despite any or all of his efforts. His fate, maybe. Punishment for what he was, what he tried not to be. A Givens. This would be the rest of his days, as long as he lived.

The Enemy Within

The Aurora had left Raylan in a dour mood, expression closed and stormy and his head swivels a little weirdly when it turns sharply to one side, like a rooster in a bird yard looking for something invading his territory. The carcasses on the street screamed warning, screamed bloody danger and it sent all of his neck hairs up on end. They unsettled him even more than he already was. The house had been broken into, overturned while he and Goose had been out checking his few snares one day, and he was kept up by the sounds of something else being broken. It felt like a jab each time, shoved behind his eyeballs every time he started to drift off to sleep, forcing him back to his feet to look out the window with a gun in his hands.

It was starting to effect him out and about. One broken window on top of everything else had been enough to top his frustrations and send him and his wild hairs right up to people he didn't know.

"Hey - yeah, you. How long you been in town for? Know anythin' about these animals bein' left around?" The thing about Raylan was that he never raised his voice. It never got loud beyond a little projection to clear distance, but he didn't really need to. He knew how to put an edge into it.

As the month wears on, as the attacks continues, more than once Raylan comes busting out of his house in the middle of the night to yell.

"JUST COME OUT AND FINISH IT INSTEAD'A HIDIN' IN THE DARK LIKE COWARDS." Come out, where he could defend himself properly. He knew it wouldn't do him any good. That didn't matter.

Bad Blood

a. The Beginning
Raylan had been getting ready for this. He didn't know when it was going to happen or what it was going to look like - but he kept his guns loaded and had been lucky enough to find some extra bullets on top of what he's already got. Goose was hidden away under his house right now and his fear for the young pup was as spiked as his tight awareness of every single body that he should manage. Of course this was going to happen, with the kidnapping, with the theft, with the careless way the community had handled the Forest talkers. Those guns weren't the only thing on him though; a chair leg with a handful of nails beaten into it was living in his left hand and a knife hung off his belt. Raylan had never been in the military, but he had seen his own kind of hollar wars and this was really no different than Company Men or Crowder's boys making an assault on what they thought was weak. They had a lesson to learn.

He had to try and keep the street as safe as he was able - he had to get into the fray, take down as many of these people as he possibly could to stop the assault.

"HEY," he yells at someone attacking a house, striding towards them as sure and confident as ever. It only took a raised weapon in his direction before Raylan was pulling his gun and shooting - every shot hit it's mark. The heart.


b. The Fray
It was all the sound of screams and destruction that faded first, leaving nothing but the rapid heartbeat in his ears. He saw a threat, he fired, they fell. If they were unlucky enough to be within 50 feet, Raylan let them come and fought. The splatter of blood across his face and body didn't phase him right now and he didn't hear the noise, there was work to be done and he could process it later. Each face was an exercise in a momentary decision. Where they destroying part of Milton? Fighting against people he knew or almost trusted, people he's started to worry for in the general sense? Threat. Target.

Corpse.

His gut had twenty plus years of this kind of gauging. Anyone that wanted to tear down Milton, to tear them down, was going to have a hellva a fight on their hands. Anyone he could save, anyone he could usher to safety, he would - They were the reason he was fighting as hard as he was, for those less capable than he was to protect someone in a moment in a way they couldn't.

c. The End

His focus finally came onto the cult leader - the one driving the charge, the one leading men and women to their own destruction. How many bodies were they going to have to bury after this? But that was after and all Raylan was focused on was now. Vengeance. An inarguable statement that might strike some fear into those Forest Talkers that survived, that might break through their fanaticism. Killing their leader would certainly be a path towards that.

Raylan tracks the man across the battlefield of Milton, across the charge against them all and into the cabin with whomever else is also smart enough to hone in on the man. He's not furious enough to kill the man as soon as he stops fighting, and he's more than willing to stare down a dying man and watch the light go out of his eyes. It doesn't phase him one bit - the hard cold truths of life were that they would all end up this way. Dead in the snow, bleeding out in one way or another.

Comments

Painful Reminders

[wishiwasatree]

What the fuck is she supposed to do with a nugget of gold? She can’t eat the fucking thing, can’t use it to keep herself warm, and she seriously doubts anyone’s going to want to barter or trade with her for something that’s got no real value in the middle of nowhere. The novelty of it, a big hunk of unprocessed gold ore, might be something worth marveling over, but there’s no capital here for it to mean anything.

She could bash someone’s head in with it. There’s always that.

It’s heavy, and it’s the first thing that really hits home to Trixie that she’s not in Deadwood. Middle of nowhere, freezing forest, dilapidated buildings? Could’ve been the camp, if she squinted. But the sudden appearance of the gold, and the whispers swirling around her head, makes truly feel like she’s been whisked away from home and thrown into some strange new world.

She hasn’t found someplace to call her own yet, but she can’t stay in the hall with the youngings. She doesn’t fit in with them, it doesn’t feel right, and so at dusk each night she bundles herself up and starts the walk through dirt-and-tamped-down snow that made of the streets of Milton to find herself a place to live. Along the way she passes by the uncanny-looking man that definitely isn’t the sheriff - too old - but might be an uncle or cousin, staring at him but saying nothing the first and second night.

The third night she starts meandering a little closer, needing to see the face and scowl and jawline, just to be sure she isn’t being haunted by Bullock too.

[tinstar]

The first night, Raylan didn't even feel her presence, stuck too far deep in his need to try and understand what was happening. The second night, he turns just in time to catch her walking away out of view and he thinks nothing of it. Another lost soul, roaming around trying to make sense of things. Is that what they all were?

The third night, he notices her again, this time well before she's out of sight and once he sees that she's coming his way, he half turns and doesn't bother to tuck away the photo in his hand. Dark eyes watch her out from under the brim of his Stetson and when he calls out, it's with a friendly, curious type tone.

"You okay?" He knew better than to walk too quickly towards women, out of respect if nothing else, so he'll stay where he is.

"It's late out, dangerous." His southern drawl was miles away from Bullock and he seems like the type that might actually smile, once and a while.

[wishiwasatree]

The sheriff he definitely ain't, but it takes a good ten seconds of staring and listening before she can let herself finally believe it. She's not sure if it'd be weirder if he actually was Seth Bullock, instead of a man who looks a hell of a lot like him, but for now she's relieved to remain an unknown in this community.

"Safer, was my thinking, when everyone was a-bed," she replies, her own drawl more indistinct. "People being more dangerous than any wild creature."

There is some hesitation in her posture. Does she walk closer to him, engage him in this conversation, or continue on her way before her tits freeze off? The decision's made as she takes her first step off the path and towards the man in the wide-brimmed hat.

"Noticed you're out here every night."

the enemy within;

[obscurissime]

It's so refreshing. Now that Alan is here, Scratch's focus has changed a bit, but he's glad to finally shed the act. It's fun to him that Alan has to repair his reputation, and, well, now things are interesting.

He's been saying for weeks that it's only a matter of time for shit to hit the fan. Breathing in the chaos is like breathing in some fresh mountain air, and it's so easy to stroll around at night and add his own handywork to the vandalism. And worse.

He's just had a bit of fun in some guy's house, getting moderately creative with a shovel that leaves the man inside dead on the floor, when he hears Raylan shouting on the street. The handsome cowboy who would be a lot more attractive if he wasn't so nosy.

"Shh, you'll wake your neighbours," he says, strolling out of the house with the shovel over his shoulder.

[tinstar]

The way Scratch's tone hits Raylan's ear is wrong, bothersome. In part because he hadn't expected to hear anything at all, but Alan's swagger, the shovel, the way he can see the blood on it from where he was standing - his neck hairs shivered. Objectively, Alan could have easily been killing one of the people who had been messing things up. Or self defense - let no one speak ill of the damage a shovel could do.

"People out here are makin' sure that no one is gettin' any goddamned sleep anyway," he snarks darkly as he turns to face the man.

"You're clearly not. What're you doin' on this street? What business you got this side'a town? Where's your weird ass hippie twin?"

[obscurissime]

He tuts his tongue a bit. Apparently some people are crabby without their beauty sleep.

At Raylan's question, he just shrugs.

"You could say I'm a night owl. It's nice to go for a walk and stretch my legs." Then he scrunches his nose, before realizing Raylan means Zane. "Who cares?"

Never mind that he and Zane also had a fun murder-bonding moment pretty recently, too.

around town;

[powersuited]

Snow might technically have her own place, but she's found herself at Bigby's more and more recently — it helps that they're already arguably neighbors, so she has a reason to be, but so far no one's questioned it on the off-chance they happen to stop over to visit either Bigby or Connor and find her there too.

This time, at least, she's back in her own house, present to finally peek out through a window and catch sight of the man responsible for delivering bundles of firewood. She grabs a coat first, throwing it over her shoulders before heading out in the hopes of catching him before he disappears out of sight behind the street.

"So I guess I have you to thank," Snow calls out, by way of greeting, before nodding to the firewood he's still carrying.

[tinstar]

She catches him just in time, stopping the tall lanky man in the Stetson cowboy hat, jeans visible under the mid-calf length wool overcoat he was wearing, collar popped up around his ears to help the thick scarf he's tucked into it all. He half turns at the sound and then finishes turning to face her as he realizes the call was in fact after him.

"Just somethin' I'm doing to try to help out. No thanks necessary, as long as it keeps ya warm. Call it a community service." His voice was warm to match his eyes, the drawl of it Southern charm, polite and respectable.

[powersuited]

"Community or no, not everyone's first instinct would involve helping their neighbors, so..." Snow trails off, reflexively drawing the open halves of her coat closed over her front — but then she stretches out one hand between them once she's within reach.

"I don't think we've been properly introduced, anyway. I'm Snow." Her smile is small and polite but sincere, the clasping she initiates full of confidence. She's no stranger to asserting herself when the situation calls for it; maybe it's the politics-adjacent leader in her.

The End

[sukeltaja]

It's terrifying. It's exhilarating. It's beautiful. There's nothing but chaos, embers from a roof falling like snowflakes, and among the chaos and cacophony Tom Zane is there. He, too, is covered in blood--not his own--with a perfectly clean hunting knife in his hands, shirtless and uncaring in the cold as his blood runs warm with adrenaline and fervor.

( He will later find Darling and fear will overcome him in a sudden fit like it does his paranoia, but now he is alive. )

There is a man, lanky in frame and cowboy hat, and Zane looks at him not as a person, but as something else entirely. A piece. An answer. A salvation. A hindrance. All of these at once and also nothing at all, the biggest impression of it all is because Zane he's seen him in the battlefield: tall and imposing and shooting without hesitation. Zane feels wonder.

Tom smiles, showing too much teeth, eyes far too wide.

"Going somewhere, handsome?"

He's falling easily in step.

[tinstar]

Givens felt about as far from the man that Zane at first met in his kitchen as they all were from home right now. The fury and adrenaline fed off each other until Raylan was nothing but the purpose he served in the moment - the stalwart protector what lives he could save, the angel of death to those who dared tried to come at them like this. He was insulted. Did they think Milton would take it laying down? Did they think the Interlopers to be stupid or lazy? Incapable?

No.

Raylan's head swivels around to the voice and the analysis is swift but unmissable. He was weighing if Zane was a threat. If he needed to put him down to. But Zane wasn't aggressive and as long as he stayed out of arm's reach with that knife, they wouldn't have any problems.

"If that crazy sonofabitch gets away, we're gonna be at war every goddamn month. I'm goin' to take care of him." His left hand, the one closer to Zane, clenches on his bloodied chair leg like the nail studded wood might be his weapon of choice to do it.

"Tell me you're not gonna try to stop me." Because that would be the wrong answer.

[sukeltaja]

Tom doesn't answer one way or another, not at first--he walks in silence, taking in the sights, his inherent, cowardly need to run eclipsed by his desire to watch Raylan. He'd clocked the other somewhat on their first meeting, hasn't been far off, but this has exceeded expectations.

Sergio Leone could never.

"I was surprised to find
That such revulsion could shine
In someone’s eyes. 'How I hate your kind,'
He said, as we sat down to dine
On him."

It feels right for him to recite. While he does, he takes the knife he hasn't used the entire time, turning so when he hands it to Raylan it's handle first. A gift.

b. the fray

[pacificator]

They'd attacked her home. Again. But she's not a helpless child anymore, and she hadn't been alone, and she and Thomas had routed them so severely that she'd be shocked if any Forest Talker so much as breathed towards Lakeside in the near future.

But Jackrabbit Cabin isn't her only home, and Tommy isn't her only family here, so Wynonna hits Milton like an avenging angel, Peacemaker warm in her hand. No hellish circle of flames opens up to swallow the Forest Talkers she takes down, but she doesn't give a damn. They go down, and they don't get back up again.

A motion catches her out of the corner of her eye and she swings around, aiming Peacemaker with unerring precision right between the eyes — until the veil of cold fury lifts just enough to recognize the man she's aiming at. Like Raylan, she's blood-spattered, her eyes hard as glass. She lowers the ancient six-gun, but doesn't holster it. "You better not be getting in my way, cowpoke."

[tinstar]

It was the shock of red hair that kept Raylan from responding within the heartbeat between her gun not being raised and it pointing at him, gun warm and light in his own hand, the extension of his fury and rage. Normally, he might take 'cowpoke' or the suggestion that him doing his job was any kind of in the way on the chin, be a gentleman about it, but for as grouchy as Wynonna had seen him before, Raylan was in a different circle of his head now.

"I ain't got shit to do with cows and if you point that pistol at me again, we're gonna have a hellva problem in the middle of us already havin' a pretty big goddamn problem." Still, he walks towards her, dark eyes flicking up and down her before they dance out around them. Plenty of chaos to be had, plenty for them to go back to but no one was under direct fire right now.

"Any of that blood yours?"

[pacificator]

"Then you should really rethink the hat, don't you think?" She's tense as he walks toward her, holding herself ready for a fight. With him, maybe, but just as likely with any of the damn Forest Talkers who've decided enough is enough.

Fine. She's more than happy to pay them back for shooting Ruby, for shooting her, and she's been wanting to work out some of these pent-up feelings she hasn't been able to do anything about for a while. She stands her ground, looking up at the lanky man, taking in the almost feral burn in his eyes. "Probably some of it."

She's not sure how many people she'd tangled with in getting here. Three? Four? She'd slung a hunting knife a lot like Doc's in her belt; her daddy's deputy badge burns in her pocket, a constant reminder that no matter how much she might try, she's only ever going to fail.

But she's still going to try. She still has people to protect. "You?"

community hall, pre-event

[dreamsofwings]

Eren only recently discovered the bulletin board. He looked at it for a bit to see if anything was relevant and noticed Raylan's note. He's never heard the word cowboy before so he can't even guess what that must mean.

At the Community Center one afternoon, he looks around for Raylan. The hat does help. It's an unfamiliar type of hat, so maybe that's the "I can fix things" guy. Eren considers for a moment but decides to just ask. It's not like he knows many people here yet either way.

He probably looks a little lost; the cold keeps him washed out, making the marks on his face more obvious.

"Are you…Raylan Givens? Do you really know how to fix a window?"

His social skills aren't the best.

[tinstar]

Looking up from his task - tidying up the firewood box that was kept inside to make feeding the fire easier - Raylan glances over the source of the voice and nods at the first question, huffing a breath of amusement as he straightens and dusts his hands off.

"Guilty as charged. And yeah, though I suppose if we're bein' technical and correct, it's replacing a window via theft from any unoccupied standin' buildin'." His voice was melodious Southern charm and full of a casual laissez faire tone that suggested that he wasn't and wouldn't be bothered by awkward socials. He's happy to smooth where he can.

"You need a window replaced?"

[dreamsofwings]

Eren makes a sound that might turn into laughter if he were someone else. He doesn't really laugh these days, though.

"Not like anyone in an unoccupied building is going to care," he says. "But I don't know how to replace one myself. The house I'm staying in has a broken window, so if you can really fix it, I'd…appreciate the help."

He tries to think of something he can offer in return, but there's precious little he has or even can do.

"I can…I don't know. Help you with chores or something in exchange."

The Enemy Within

[copacetic]

Fuck.

Jane's heart is thudding in her chest as she hears a man's voice calling out to her. Unable to hunt or otherwise provide for herself, not sure who she can trust, Jane has taken to breaking into houses and stealing food. It's easy enough to justify it to herself. A girl's gotta eat, right?

She'd been on her way to Raylan's, intending to sneak in to see if he had anything, when he emerges unexpectedly. She dives behind a tall pine. Not quite fast enough.

When Raylan comes out, at first, it's quiet but if he looks, he'll see a young woman peering out at him from behind a tree, her blue eyes wide. At least she doesn't seem to have violent intentions, but it's clear she's watching him, and doesn't seem aware she's been spotted yet.

[OOC: Lmk if this works! If not, I can re-write! ]

[tinstar]

The weight of eyes was a hard feeling to explain to most people. It was a tingle on the back of the neck, an almost preternatural knowledge, that gut feeling that Raylan had been learning when to trust and when to ignore since he was 8. He felt it now in a way that wasn't just the yawning expanse of the sky pressing down on him with an ominous, promising air.

Someone was watching him. His eyes scan his horizon, turning a little and seemingly looking past the tree Jane was hiding behind. Oh, he'd seen her, pale face sticking out against the poorly lit backdrop - young if he had to guess. He entertains the idea of going back inside, letting the young girl think she's escaped his notice, only to have circled around the house to sneak up behind her.

It's a coin toss, really, and after a long moment, Raylan turns to head back in and do just that. He knew how to move almost silently in snow, in the forest; he'd memorized the creaks in his house and with those long ass legs, he could hustle when he needed to. His hat was dropped on a flat surface as he runs by and moves out the back door and around the corner of the house, staying in the shadows.

He was going to catch up with her, it was only a matter of how long it took. What she did and how sloppily she did it.

[OOC:Lmk if you'd rather that coin fall the other way - it was a real struggle to decide which path to take.]

[copacetic]

[OOC: Nope! That works perfect!]

Jane silently breathes a sigh of relief. Okay. Whew. That was a close one. He almost saw her. But it looked to Jane like his eyes had missed her, looking past and through to her something else on the horizon before he went back inside. Okay. It looks like the coast is clear.

Jane thinks about scampering off somewhere else, now that she knows the house is occupied, but the desperate hunger pangs in her stomach push her forward. Besides, if there's a guy in the house, then there's gotta be food in the house, right? She'll just be careful.

Jane swallows, and steels all of her courage, before she takes a deep breath and pushes forward, creeping closer to Raylan's house. She goes to the door first, turning the knob gently and as quietly as she can to see if it's open. Hopefully, he's the type to not lock his door...

The Fray

[salamanca]

It's not a Forest Talker that pops into Raylan's view next.

There's a scream -- high-pitched, terrified. A youngish woman sprints into Raylan's view, but she's not alone. Soon, he sees her pursuer. But not for long. There's the soft whht! of a silenced gun, and the man, one of the Forest Talkers, stumbles and falls over, hit in the leg.

The source of the shot soon becomes clear. Lalo comes into view. Sweaty, covered in dirt and scraps and patches of blood himself. His eyes go wide at the sight of Givens.

The girl, meanwhile, stumbles towards Givens and flings herself into his arms. She's breathing hard. This Talker had been chasing her for quite sometime.

Lalo's brows furrow, his eyes softening at the familiar. "Raylan?" he asks. First name basis again. No time for playing around, or 'Officer'.

[tinstar]

The sharpest screams always caught his attention over the others; the ones that drove every fiber of his being towards action, towards protection, towards silencing the terror. Steel cold, dark eyes swivel towards the sound, body already moving - he catches her in his arm and wraps her against his chest as he turns them both, making them smaller targets as he raises his own barrel and -

He inhales sharply in recognition at the sound, the sudden drop of his target. What the hell? Lalo steps into view and Raylan is flooded with a rush of tense, somewhat stunned relief. The obvious nature of Lalo being able to protect himself, the silencer, and that white horse that Raylan had mentioned back on the streets of Milton a month ago all reassuring surprises amid the worry that some of that blood belonged to the man himself, but they still had an assailant.

The man on the ground writhes up onto his side, getting his good leg knelt under him, swearing over his bum leg, and starting to get back up like he might hobble away or worse - use that rusty knife in his hand. Raylan doesn't so much as blink before his aim snaps to it's adjustment.

"So much move up one more inch and I'll put you back down for good, asshole."

The man got only so far into his "Fuck y-" before Raylan did exactly as he promised. The shot that rang out mixed in too well with the chaos that echoed in the valley around them. Dark furious eyes lose a little of their edge as they move back to meet Lalo's gaze. Feelings would have to wait. The concern of what picture Raylan was forced to paint would have to wait. First things first.

The girl in his arms was sobbing now, clinging to him and hiding her face in his chest like it would block everything out, and despite all his violence, he drops his voice down to a soft reassuring comfort. "Okay darlin', you're okay. We gotta get you somewhere safe, alright? C'mon."

He moves them towards Lalo. "Glad to see you came armed." He won't ask any of the questions that he wanted to except, "You injured? Any of that mess your own?"

the fray

[he_shall_walk]

The thing about wearing white, about pale skin and pale hair, is that when it gets blood on it? It's stark.

Venat still tends to wear her robes over other clothing to keep warm, because it is the way of her people, to dress this way, to keep the mask at the front, to be as plain as possible. Now, that white robe is stained with the spray of blood, at least one dead at her hand, the others injured as she has discovered the limits of her new existence in battle.

She bears a shield and a sword, and when she sees Raylan, a familiar face, a fond memory of her time here, none of it makes her pause before approaching him from the front and declaring openly with all the gravitas of a general, of all her years, blood dark over her white clothes and hair and blue eyes blazing-

"I defend Milton. I have taken this place as my home, and these people as my people. Where stand you, Raylan Givens?"

And it is very clear she will use that sword on him if his answer is the wrong one or die trying.

[tinstar]

She looked like an avenging angel, bright and terrible and old with her sword and shield, but the kind of old that spoke to more experience than Raylan was able to comprehend right now. It demanded an instant respect, even with the challenge so plainly laid out in the question. Still, there wasn't a shred of fear in Raylan right now. No room with all the righteous fury and purpose he was filled with.

He was insulted at the question, drawn so sharply from his all business frame of mind to be asked what he felt was the obvious. He was covered with his own splatters of blood, evidence of his own efforts, nailbat wet and gun hot in his hands.

"You see me beatin' feet outta the treeline? This place is not my home but I'll be goddamned if I sit around and watch someone else terrorize innocent people and raze it to the fuckin' ground for what amounts to fear and fake gods. Where's that put me on your siege map?"