badfool

Unto Dust

Ahh I'm so sorry I've been so slow! I haven't forgotten! I've been crunching time with an upcoming assignment just to drop in and give you a little notice. I didn't want to rush a post rather than doing it when I have a time to sit and write a decent one out.

Hope you're feelin well!

Unto Dust

Oh no! I hope everything is going okay though now. Hospitals usually aren't very fun at all. ):

I'll be working on my post soon! Had a busy weekend so I understand being slow haha

Dust To Dust (czechmate46 & badfool)

And just like that Declan recognized all the white hot rage that was rolling off of him. For such a young man, Jack couldn't be older than twenty by Declan's estimation, he harbored more hate in his body than any he'd ever met. Not because of the blood smears hands, the two pistols he kept strapped to him or how he could destroy three men in cold blood. But by how his voice quaked, the two bloodshot eyes that met painfully with his each time Declan had prodded for anything personal. He'd only just scratched the surface. There was more underneath that was just begging to tear its way out and terrible as it was Declan was on a newfound mission to know exactly what.

He took a gander at the horse stationed past Jack, rolling the key in his palm before holding it up as if to feign some kind of innocence. Glancing between the key and Jack, he offered a grin despite the pain of a sore face. "It'll get you farther than the pony of yours, I bet. You need somewhere to be?" He asked. The key beckoning as though it were the one talking, held up in the sunlight and tempting.

Declan then turned to his car. The drivers side door, while dented, opened with ease. He placed the wooden box on the floor of the back seat, pushing it below one of the seats until it was both concealed and secure. Turning back to Jack and flashing him a quirked brow, he nodded his head to the bodies that lay strewn in the dust around the car. His offer still stood; he owed Jack his life and if he was a true man at all he would hold to repaying him in some way. Fair was fair, and who was he to deny Jack a favor as simple as a ride? That was unless he was looking for more. With Jack's swelling anger though it seemed far from finished.

"...Someone to meet?"

Unto Dust

Hello! I'm good! Just been busy with classes. A bit homesick haha but that's to be expected. How are you? Are you feeling any better?

Dust To Dust (czechmate46 & badfool)

A good minute or so Declan reserved for simply eying the boy with the same astonishment that a young man more suited to be a farm help had the courage to pull the trigger on three men. If Jack hadn't been mounted on a horse and if his attire were more thrifty than his assumptions of Jack being just that – a farm boy, he would have thought him to be a student. But they were far from any university and they were deep in the dusty farmlands past either city that their location had been closest to. Nothing but dry grass and little fits of dust carried by the wind, a few farm houses scattered in the far off distances, either vacant or perishing and finally the long, open road. But his eyes and ears didn't deceive him, and here stood the boy, knuckles stained with the blood of another and eyes that reflected an eerie kind of emptiness. A young farm boy who had no qualms with ending the lives of his attackers and mounting back up like he'd completed a job and had just gotten paid. Declan wasn't against the idea of it. Paying him, that was.

So before Jack had remounted Clover and set off for home, or to whatever agenda he'd fixed for himself, he raised his hands up and waved them as if the younger one had forgotten something. Surely Jack wasn't going to forget about being repaid in some way. No sensible man would go out of his way to murder three fleeing men and claim it was defense only to saddle up without another word. Jack didn't strike him to be the kind to get a cheap thrill out of killing. Not with how angrily he went about it. At least, not while he was striking a man's face in with more rage than he'd seen in full grown drunks. Not with the kind of stony eyes Jack had behind the puffy lids of someone who'd spent an entire night sobbing. Declan didn't know, and frankly with how he went about his attackers without a lick of remorse he was sure any normal person wouldn't be able stomach the truth of his mission or the grotesque deeds of the faraway men who lit Jack up into a vengeful flame. But Declan was always a curious soul and he never was sure if it was a hindrance or the key of opportunities. Either way, he owed himself to Jack not only once but three times for each man he'd snuffed out in his defense.

“Just can't let you go off like that without paying you nicely for what you've done. Can I now? Owe you a lot more than money after all 'o that.” Declan reasoned. He didn't have the amount of money worth his life stored in his money clip. It was a good sum, but not a life's worth, and above anything else he wanted a proper reading on Jack before letting him slip away for good. Namely, why in heaven's sake he wasn't splitting off into the wind like any new murderer would. Carefully, he stepped over the awkward legs of the mangled man below. Jack, in all honesty, looked about as terrible as he must have felt on the inside without all of the crying. It showed, and it wasn't just the blood that gave Declan the inkling that something wasn't quite right. But above all better judgment and conscious, he was going to get digging at whatever it was and if he was going to be burned in the process then so be it. He then searched for his keys in an idle fashion, hands burrowed in his pockets until he'd managed to spot a glint of metal half burrowed in the dust. Declan plucked them from the ground, blew the keys clean and continued, “That said, your face looks 'bout as sorry as mine, boy. Does your father know you went practicing today?”

Dust To Dust (czechmate46 & badfool)

Wanted to let you know I may be a bit slow this week and with the next post but I will begin tonight! Summer school midterm is this week. Hope your end is well!

Unto Dust

That's fine! Priorities first (: have fun and good luck! I'll be here haha

Bad's 1x1. M/M, Dark themes, Historical, Fantasy

Bump!

Unto Dust

Finn studied the book a bit more. He closed it, flipped it around and opened it once more as if it were a strange device he'd never seen before in his life. You would have thought he'd never so much as seen a book before on account of his odd look but it wasn't so much the book itself than the words that it carried within. Reading was a luxury. Or, at least, that's how it was treated all of his life. His mother, his sisters and it wasn't a stretch to say that even his father were illiterate. Why read when you could work? And why work when you could steal and cheat your way through life? It was an easier life, in some ways, and rougher in others. But books were supposed to mean something to the literate bunch - knowledge and stories, fact and fiction and anywhere in between and beyond. Finn supposed he'd met a handful of people who could truly read, Eli being one of them.

Finally, he set the book face down, somewhat surprised that he didn't burst into flames upon touching it, then slid it back to Eli. His face fell from his earlier perk of curiosity to a lax expression and leaned back into his seat once more. His long, speckled arms folded lazily over his chest and he threw his eyes down to the floor, around the back corners of the room as if they were somehow suddenly interesting.

"Judge wants me to be a good man, don't he?" Finn cleared his throat, as if to shake off the intimacy of the Holy Book and what it had meant to Eli. The fool would probably die defending the bound paper and Finn want sure whether to laugh or feel bad for him. Then, he turned back to Eli with arched brows and a tilted head, the kind of look you'd give a child. And, despite Eli's earlier tone that was meant to be more encouraging than it was patronizing, he mocked him. "Make me a deal, Father. When the day some bastard finally gets me you can be right there while I'm bleedin' out, 'n then you can send my soul to heaven with your magic words."

Dust To Dust (czechmate46 & badfool)

By the time Jack was finished with the three men the crime scene was a scattered mess. Blood, brain and bodies littered the roadway and they, or rather Jack, was fortunate that another car didn't pass by in the time it took him to slay them. Declan looked about with a curious scan as he gathered himself, yet there was only so much one could do after a good roll in the dust. That, and he was certain that his clothing was ruined on account of all the blood.

While Jack seemed to waste no time with hearing what the criminals had to say, he walked with the gait of a man well beyond his years and with no mercy left to spare. Which was why Declan was all the more interested in how such a young man could look another straight in the eyes right before firing a bullet between them. He wasn't so much spooked by it as he was astounded that someone so young could have the will to do so without a second thought or a single hesitant finger on his pistol. Then again, Declan was used to loud noises and a gunshot wasn't all that frightening if it wasn't shot your direction, was it? He didn't suppose Jack was going to rob him even armed and dangerous as he was. Not with the way he went about saving him. Something about the boy was heavier, more bitter than a common criminal staking another's winnings. At least, that's what Declan assumed when Jack had bit back his tears right before killing the last.

Something about it all was oddly funny to him, in a peculiar kind of way. That Jack carried all of the burden and emotion of what Declan should have felt shortly after nearly being pummeled to death. And for whatever reason Jack was the one punishing these men like some kind of violent godsend while Declan watched and smeared the blood from his face with his forearm. Why then was Jack so adamant about tormenting these men before death if it was just to defend him? He toyed around with them like a falcon to a field mouse but didn't waste a second for their blubbering.

In the meantime when Jack had just finished up with the final man and the body matter that had escaped upon being shot, Declan inspected the contents of the wooden case some few yards away. He unlocked the metal clasps, relieved to find that his instrument had not perished in any way only to close it up right after as Jack approached.

Perhaps now wasn't the best time to ask if Jack was okay on account of his red eyes. He looked as though he'd spent his whole life crying despite the rest of him carrying a sort of smoothness that would have otherwise fooled him. So when he found his way back, offering a bloody hand out to him as well as a name, Declan couldn't refuse shaking the hand of the man who'd stood between him and death. Surely, there was a way to repay him after such a gratuitous rescue. With that reasoning, he extended his own hand and clasped onto Jack's.

"Declan. Now, that was quite a show there. For a moment I woulda thought you'd pick up where they left off."