#v;heathen thing borne from dirt and desolation

[vastiitas]

Exhaustion crashes down with the crushing weight of a waterfall; some awful, angry force that would see you drown in the watering hole before it ever considered betraying the relentlessness of gravity. Cole's vision warbles, the floor between dead bodies rocking to motion sickness as his focus flickers and gutters on a dying wick.

He tip-toes the idea of teetering into oblivion when Colt's abrupt arrival is announced by a swinging shoulder-to-shoulder slug, snapping into his consciousness with the sudden brusqueness of a jump cut, and whatever fucking adrenaline that'd shot through him just now has left him both simultaenously hollowed out and too heavy all at once and his body sags pliantly, gives too easy.

His brother's voice sounds like a concussed radio, dingy audio waves slipping in and out of coherency, moth-eaten by white noise. He registers the urgency, the anxious hoofwork and animal whinnies of distressed horses, but it's too damn far away, watered down and distended by interference film.

Something about going. Something about walking.

He mutters something along the lines of "Ok", mumble-mouthed and breathy, and tries to pry himself up by an awkward grip on the table, crowbaring his weight off a palm heel shuddering against the wood top. His head pounds, baying, a log split beneath the solid weight of an axe bit, and it nearly cripples his vision black again.

He thinks Colt might've asked him 'bout the whole face-being-bashed-in thing, but he ain't too sure and thinking too hard on it threatens to squeeze his brains into popping right out of his skull, so he trips over his own words in a haggard-beat drawl that's rode this rodeo before, sloppy with a sluggishness inundating his consonants: "Jus' knocked me 'round lil bit." Happens, sometimes. Just happens.

"Where're we," He staggers, gropes a blind hand on Colt's arm to compensate for the sudden careening as his boot toe wedges into a dead body, and something dimly registers in him that the poor bastard known as Colt Cassidy is still alive and kicking, thank fucking god, he's still alive and kicking and breathing and his fingers curl into a subconscious squeeze on the other's arm , the son of a bitch — "Where're we goin'—"

The sting of welling TEARS mixed with coarse dirt clamp the boy's eyes shut as he's ground further into the parking lot by a scuffed boot. There's an undeniable sense of dread that instantly cloaks his entire body — drowning out the taste of iron on his tongue, the PAIN in his shoulder, any thoughts in his head...it weighs down his limbs like they're suddenly made of LEAD.

But there's an anger simmering in his chest — heated by penitence, by his obedience to just lay down and die, and RAGE against Cole's attacker. BASTARD — thinking he can lay his hands on his brother...it ignites fury, and it comes barreling in as an aching will to FIGHT BACK.

His free hand balls into a fist looking to swing as the rest of him writhed under the pressure of the older man's boot. He'd manage to wriggle his arm out of the attacker's grasp just as the deafening crack of a heavy hammer shudders through him, breath hitching with the rest of him — frozen solid in his groove in the dirt as he waited.

For a moment, the air is still — filled with nothing but the cries of two onlooking horses still hitched to a post at the other end of the lot. And it stays like this for what felt like hours. Colt wondered how long this would take, wondered how long he had until his body registered...wondered until his thoughts were silenced by the solid THUD of the man's body hitting the ground next to him, sending another jolt through the boy's body.

He scrambles away and eventually to his feet, adrenalin wreaking havoc on his veins, shaking his hands and weighing down his boots — they drag through the dirt as he staggers over to the table, Colt fumbling over himself in an attempt to get away from the corpse he can't seem to peel his eyes from. He practically trips onto the bench to crash next to his brother, dislocated shoulder bumping Cole's, the pain knocking him out of his daze.

There's a frantic look in his eye as he glances over the other, finally looking him over for injuries — which prove pretty difficult to miss, yet difficult to make out exactly what was wrong. Crimson painted the table, and the entirety of Cole's front, worsening by the second. Wide-eyed, his gaze drifts past the wounds, over the other's head and towards the corner store. Surely they've got something in there that would help, at least stop the bleeding. Oversized window panes provide a clear view of the back wall, Colton franticly scanning over what little product he can make out before locking on to the clerk behind the counter — phone in his hand, eyes just as WILD as Colton's...

"We gotta get outta here..." A realization that's mumbled under his breath, and repeated with obvious urgency. "C'mon, we gotta go! W-what'd they do t'you? Can y'walk?" he spits out, good hand tugging on Cole's arm for answers.

[vastiitas]

History & Verses

BASIC RUNDOWN:

As of present, 37 years old. Observant and wily beneath a seemingly open, laid-back, and charismatic attitude. Was all thunder and fury as a kid - it’s weathered away, softened, but manifests when you poke all the wrong buttons. He’s still got his impulsive, reckless and hot-headed tendencies for all his un-hurried, unbothered lounging he does now. Deadeye marksman with a revolver that knows his way through a grapple and brawl – has always had a talent for it, an instinct for it, since youth. If he’s not in trouble, he’s got the bad luck of finding more or making it himself and is perpetually staggering out from near-deaths. An unfortunate dopamine hit to high stakes, adrenaline, danger; body always relaxing fully in the throes of it. Instinctively protective of those who can’t protect themselves, though he isn’t quite aware of it. Resourceful. Haughty sorta guy with a humor that walks on the gallows. The sorta kid who carries home in his hearth of a wandering heart, able to make friends anywhere, but always whisked away by some circumstance or another.

In terms of appearance, he’s 6′1. Brown Hair, Brown eyes. Left arm is replaced by a prosthetic, the amputation being transhumeral/above elbow (though whether or not he has it will be dependent on the timeline/verse.) In terms of Overwatch, I prefer his design of the first game over the second, so his attire will mostly be in reference to that.

To really break down my portrayal, I try to take pieces from: Cool Hand Luke (estranged relationship with god, when his mother says fondly and teasingly "you were boring everybody" when he tried to be a proper fiancé, when he says "i haven't planned a single thing in my life", his boyish instigations, when they give him his namesake and go "sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand!", and his inevitable death being true to his nature); just a lil bit of blondie from the good the bad the ugly (keeping cards close to his chest, his quiet empathy towards tuco as they leave the church and later the dying soldiers, being a show-off but also a dork in his own right, discernment to be wise enough to look out for one's own self-interest), and a bit of John Marst (disillusionment with Causes, being chained along to be used by the government, betrayal/being left for dead by the people you used to think of as family) and RDR in the more general sense that if I don't see him walking around in that universe as a grounded person - he simply does not sit right with me. I try also to integrate the violence within the books of C.ormac McC.arthy. There's a sort of mischief and craftiness that comes with a coyote motif. Self contradictory in being laid back, but also impatient and reckless (though more present in his earlier years and less so in the later -- unless you know him well). Headstrong and bold, but kind. Someone who can make himself at home anywhere. There's a running theme of self-burial and bloody baptisms: he has killed cole cassidy for all of his weakness; he has put to rest jesse mccree for all of his wounds that were too much to bear. Honorable Mentions include: JB Mau.ney (bull rider), and Randle McMurphy (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest), and Odysseus (Homer) for his perpetual bad luck and wily nature (but also this fic Captures Everything Quite Well), sometimes Achilles w his righteous anger.

pre-deadlock

V;HEATHEN THING BORNE FROM DIRT AND DESOLATION

ah, well, you know how the story goes. farm boy lives on a farm, war comes, war tears up the country, war tears up the world, farm boy is now an orphan boy who gets tossed around between foster homes 'til it starts getting on his nerves. the boundless sky mocks him, the dirt a reminder of what he's been reduced to; the grit of it scorns him on his skin. the boy finally says, "fuck this, fuck everything," and becomes a runaway. wild thing, coarse, and wary; but not without his charms when he feels like he doesn't got anything to prove. the name "cole cassidy" died with his family, but it sits tentative on his tongue like a habit that has yet to be kicked.

Headcanons about his youth can be found here.

deadlock.

V;CHASE THAT ADRENALINE DOWN WITH A CLASSIC TRAIN HEIST

the summer is screaming. gun shots, buck shots, iron cracking, glass shattering. home isn't an easy thing for jesse mccree, but he thinks he found one amongst the drum of bedlam and people here, in the seedling starts of a gang that will soon become a monster of a force in the American West. a boyish crush on a respectable girl-turned-woman, he strides alongside her steadily. banter, laughter, liquor. from 15 to sweet 17, he's on the adrenaline high of train heists. a menace, with his six-shooter and a mean deadeye. scrappy and snappy to authority, still a lanky son of a bitch growing steadily into the meat of muscle he's yet to don. a thorn spurs into his side though, slides right into his heart and festers. it feels insiduous, like doubt, and it feels like damnation. nauseatingly, something about it's like watching a compass turn away from north; but, hell, maybe that's just the booze. (i read deadlock rebels, and i'm not going to refute it.)

early blackwatch.

V;PRISON WITH A LEASH

an ultimatum is an ultimatum: a life-time of prison or service for covert-ops. hell, he thinks. hell, he reckons. at the very least, he'll get to stretch out his legs. an understatement, with what's to come in training. as far as he's concerned, he's an animal to be broken into; a hardy, mishapen piece of clay that they're trying to mould and shape. amusingly enough, it's looking not too different from what it already was: gun-shaped and deadly, being fine-tuned for the red hand of blackwatch. jesse mccree has always been easy to make friends with, but the people here, as far as he's concerned, are either mission objectives or prison wardens. he keeps his cards close, watching like he'd done as a child, biding his time to run. 

blackwatch.

V;SECOND HOME AND SECOND CHANCES

steadily enough, blackwatch and overwatch has wormed his way into his heart. at first, it'd been a veneer of professionalism forced upon him by military decorum, but it's near painful for him to consider that maybe, just maybe, he's found a second family. age and retrospect gives him a little more clarity in that the ultimatum really was an open-handed opportunity. his time with blackwatch in his early years hasn't beaten his tact from train heists out of him yet. still a little reckless, still taking gambits. a maverick, in his own right. he holds his cards a little less so tightly to his chest, learns to be less wary of omnics and ais, and is keener on the rolling with the punches than the resentment he'd held before. 

outlaw.

V;OUTLAW IN THE NEW WEST

disillusionment. with blackwatch and overwatch's fall, he reckons right or wrong aren't so defined after all. redemption is a hack of a word, one he'll forever associate with what they'd told him that he was doing. up until things just got a little too dirty. if he'd seen it earlier, maybe he could have stopped it. or, maybe it's just that he's a little bit too rotten, and he'll always fall a step left on that clean moral line. it wasn't like he disagreed that the man had to be taken down. at the end of the day, he's back in the dirt. back to a vague sense of home, some strange body of familiarity with the hug of gritty discomforts. money comes and goes, changes hand to hand. he picks up the jobs that he has to. he'll be hard-pressed to do some good, but maybe he can't help himself when something tips that moral compass needle anywhere away from the true north that he's learned to define himself. 

overwatch.

V;BACK IN THE SADDLE 

overwatch comes back. it stands, tall and defiant, struggling to find its legs proper, but deteremined nonetheless. a cynical part of him needles at him that this won't last, it'll collapse in itself like before. but there's no blackwatch this time, only an earnest, perhaps overly-idealistic gorilla who sees when there's wrong to be righted. with terrorist organizations back on the rise, with some mumbo-jumbo about bettering this or that, challenging humanity to be better or screaming about its downfall, he reckons overwatch is the one thing that stands against another omnic war in the making and creating more aimless, orphaned jesse mccree's in the world. if overwatch can come back from the grave, he reckons, cole cassidy can, too. better, that way, when there's a bounty hanging over the mccree name anyhow. (1)

retirement.

V;LIVING PAST THE MYTHOS

Self-Explanatory

a modern verse.

V;MODERN TAKE ON A DYING BREED

Same run down: Farm Boy turned Orphan turned Runaway. No Robot War to kill the parents, but it’s an unfortunate plight all the same anchored by shady back room deals. Ran away from the changing of foster homes to a string of farms looking for farmhands. Lost his left arm to a piece of equipment at one of those megafarms, got given the boot, got drunk, got angry, did something stupid, got into a gang, got arrested. if only out of spite, he attempted all the different ways he could try and make a break for it, but there’s only so much you can do when you��ve got phantom pains crippling your stub of an arm. somewhere down the line, after his release, he picks up a prosthetic and tries his remaining hand at bounty hunting after a serendipitous moment of taking down some asshole who decided to shoot up a diner.

this tag is a catch-all for all periods of his life in this verse unlike the filing system for his ovw verses.

rancher.

V;LIL SLICE OF HEAVEN SADDLED ON A COWPUNCHER'S DREAM

kid that came from dust-scraps that took to the pbr as soon as he could (min age is 18 for entry, I'm sure); he quickly takes the stage by storm as the kid who came from nowhere. in elaboration to his youth: it's not so different from how it is in all his other verses. a dispossesed, orphan traveller who works his ocassional odd jobs, but for the most part he DOES stick to being a cowhand; bothering the local vaqueros and rancheros about rodeo competitions. he does a lot of trial and error learning on his own, uses a lot of secondhand and borrowed equipment while building his own set for his first entry. before the loss of his parents, he'd started with mutton busting and being put on top of steers as per most kids. cole's other point of interest in the competitions is steer wrestling, which he will perform for on the occassion, but not as frequently for a bull ride; he's also a mean ass roper - but he keeps this skillset to the job despite folk asking him to partner up for team-roping or just enter as a roper. cole takes a lot of his winning funds to settle out and work his own property in his downtime. it's a modest size compared to an average ranch (he keeps about ~25 head or less), and he keeps it this way to be manageable when he's travelling between competitions. good neighbors will ranch-sit for him while he's away. he's well-known and well-regarded in the town he settles down in; knows most people's names. im just going to put some of his other modern-verse npc's residing in this town which include Ernesto, who taught him to maintain and build a motorbike, and Ol' Kooky Sal who threw him around on a crop duster plane. He still loses his arm, at some point. while this forces him into retirement for bull-riding purposes, he does continue with the upkeep of his ranch and falls into other portions of the events, such as bull fighting (protecting riders when they dismount), and the raising and training of bulls.

western period verse.

V;CAUGHT STILL IN TIME BY A BYGONE ERA

For RDR and etc.// I keep this vague in order to play Cole to whatever dynamic  is desired or comes into play. Otherwise, you can generally expect the same story beats as above: orphan -> gang -> mutual betrayal within gang that leaves him half dead and picked up by a lawman who gives him a second chance as opposed to a noose (age: 17) -> spends his time as a deputy and bounty man, eventually splitting and/or putting his mentor figure in the ground due to a combination of illness and political corruption.

tlou/post-apocalyptic verse.

V;TIP-TOEING THE RAZOR'S EDGE OF AN UNCERTAIN TOMORROW

For tlou, zombies, etc. Generally, a raider that can act in a group or solo. Tends to keep to himself and a wanderer. Also left vague to accommodate case-by-case plotting.

supermax prison. (upon request)

V;JUMPSUIT ORANGE AND JAIL CELL GREY

OVW DIVERGENT VERSE. he doesn’t take the ultimatum to join blackwatch and is set to spend the rest of his life in a prison. This verse can be set to further develop into a talon verse in itself after a Talon or Null Sector attack (whether wayward or intentional) causes an impromptu jail break. Keeping this separate from the Talon Verse below in order to allow room for Gabriels who want the potential for a pre-established past connection vs keeping it anon and new.

That said, most of the focus would be exploring relationships in prison and visitations.

talon verse. (upon request)

V;COULDN'T SCRUB THE DEVIL OUT OF YOU

" I can see your soul at the edges of your eyes. It's corrosive, like acid. You got a demon, little man. And I don't like your face. “

Callsign’s predictably Deadeye, but more for the dead-eyed look he’s carrying around. Started out as a muttered, whispered nickname amongst the grunts when he wasn’t feeling particularly conversational and stuck. He’ll introduce himself as Jesse though.

Personality wise: He’s basically the same, 'cept there's something perpetually restless itching beneath his skin. starting shit just to start shit, throttling forward into void with a devil’s glint in the eyes. This is a man with nothing to live for and nothing to lose - living a purgatorial existence where the only thing that serves to make him feel alive is when life or death is at stake. The sun blows out to a black hole; leaving behind a shattered carpet of shredded light and an unrelenting appetite for more.

OTHER VERSES INCLUDE:

v;the desert tucked its heart into your mouth and swallowed you whole because it loved you. -- A mirage-like stranger who appears to help stragglers out from the desert. Dead man walking in the form of a memory from the land. AKA a ghost au (but not quite a ghost); more third person phenomenon manifest.

v;gutted you out and made you hungry - creature thing hung on its own noose -- a talon verse w the usual kidnapping and brainwashing. the memory is attacked due to pre-existing conditions deriving from an extensive history with head trauma and concussions. A perpetual feeling of something missing feeding into an anger that they've broken into something shapeless, and into a perpetual torment that is only relieved into peace and silence upon completing a hit. Feelings of empathy or moral dissonance leftover of himself causes further flare ups bordering a sense of madness, feeding into the destruction of his own id and his need for mental quiet. higher ability to discern, reason, and decide, outside of what's necessary to perform his hits are destroyed and ruined. despite everything, much of what was already there is simply re-arranged. physical augmentations have been implemented for mechanical obedience; but these are separate from a true sleeper agent esque rewrite (e.i. winter soldier n activator words) and extend to the most basic commands.

OTHER STATS

Has a conversational grasp on Spanish. Grew up with it with a bunch of farm hands.

Texan outfit, Texan boy, Texan Southern Drawl.

Didn’t have a formal education prior to BW.

Is wary af abt omnics until fully integrated into OW.

has a bounty on his own head in OW verses. Not included in modern verse, but we can make it a separate one if you’d like >:)c

Joel was his father’s name. A narcissist obsessed with using those around him to better his own ends, Cole learned from him at an early age how to identify all the tells of a person trying to get something from you and at the basic level on how to lay on the charm (which he later developed further into his own thing.) Frequent arguments broke between them, bearing onto the physical, with mostly the blame falling onto him due to his own habits of instigating and finding trouble. There are some scars on his back from these years as a child; they’re faded and lost to other wounds as of current day.  

For OVW: I try to keep connections vague to have room with other people’s interpretations of their characters. For threads that don’t make use of these characters, here are my general takes on his feelings for said characters:

I personally think Reyes makes a Dutch equivalent for Cole (which in itself is all very complicated; dutch has shit going on, but i think he genuinely cared when things were good), but I specifically made his father a narcissist in order to give more room for lighter bonds/connections.

I also regard the falling out with Deadlock as a mutual betrayal; Cole came out of it bleeding and bruised. He will regard Ashe with wariness: He misses her, but the feelings are complicated. I see their ovw2 voicelines as more sibling antagonism than outright animosity. He does not rat on DL.

Jack may be “the golden boy” of ovw but my Cassidy won’t resent him for “not getting his hands dirty” like the bw crew. He might make fun of him for it, but Jack, to him, reads like an earnest guy trying his best. i think that jack is the one that gave him permission to leave when bw went to shit in retribution; furthering tensions between him and reyes. this doesn’t need to be the canon if you’re a character (e.i. reyes) that closely interacts with a jack.

ana amari was his first step in integrating with the ovw crew. Her sharpshooting skills and resourcefulness lended respect (the latter a feeling of ilk) and marks his shift from being wary of what he considered his prison wardens to genuine mentor figures. Reyes taught him a lot, but he enjoyed Amari's lessons the most.

He holds a certain fondness for Sombra; I think those two made contact sometime during BW, or after he had left it. I think she's also informed him a bit on "The Conspiracy."

For OVW - Explaining the Deadeye mechanic: On here, it’s an adrenaline effect; where one hits peak flow and it nearly becomes meditative. Cole’s good at keeping his head under pressure, actually almost relaxes in it, and this is that same thing except scaled up to 1000%. idk if you’ve ever, like, filled up a room with your presence alone without even a word, but it happens and i imagine this plays into the whole thing you see in-game when he activates it. post-adrenaline fatigue does hit him, and it hits him hard when he uses the mechanic multiple times within a short period.

Headcanons

Further Peripheral Details

[vastiitas]

@quick-drawn

They sit in the aftermath of it, collapsed in the dirt after having been run off from the premises for starting shit with some dung-pile ridden asswipes posturing too much with their seedy little guns and their vest-covered chests all puffed out like the regalia had meant something. Cole squints at Colton beneath a smatter of upturned mud and strands of uprooted grass, hair blown to disheveled angles that leaves his forehead exposed; it glistens with sweat, dilutes the dirt amongst smeared rivulets, wets the crumpled ridges of knit brows.

And then he launches out an exhale, collapsing back-first into the sun-baked earth. Pebbles meet his shoulder blades. There's a stupid grin peeling at his lips as he drags the heel of his palm against his forehead, along his screwed-shut eyes; some sorta adrenaline laughter that knocks his breathing to a stuttered rhythm.

"Sure," and maybe he's fucking giggling because he isn't going to get the visual of Colt getting angry out of his mind any time soon. Fuck, he doesn't know why, but it's a funny fucking sight when it isn't directed at him, "Anyone ever tell you that you look like a fucking gorilla who got their banana stolen from 'em when y'get like that?"

There's a bruise in his chest that clatters against the snicker. His grin aches against the warmth of the sun. His voice is pinched breathless, "Like somebody pissed in your cereal."

[vastiitas]

He wants to meet the eyes of the man who's got his life steepled between his fingers, but his gaze is fixed to the shaking gun barrel and its black-hole hollow. Drugs? First time Nerves? Man gives his answer, barrels into an interrogation, and, fuck, Cole thinks this guy just might be fucking crazy.

An ugly grimace smears a skid mar over his expression, yanks his shoulders taut and pries his jaw flat against his molars. Looks like a flinch. Maybe it is, the way his heart trips over itself at the kick that bucks off the man's voice like a fucking bullet crack.

"Who th' hell remembers where the hell they were a whole ass year from now to the minute—" Anger, petulant, burning a smoke screen cover to compensate for being on the low ground. Bark loud, bear teeth — it's all he's got left, the bite of fingernails curling into his palms one last time for a gun that isn't there.

in his head, the gun goes off: powder residue on the space between finger and thumb— under his nose too but that was for courage. sweat sticks to his temple, becomes the halo-break in heat from the blood rushing to his head, cheeks, and neck.

this wasn’t a grown man. hell, this was barely a kid.

“i don’t want your money,” he says. it sounds fuzzy and far-off, a little surprised. kid thought this was a robbery? ha. wasn’t that bitter irony?

the gun trembles in his hand, but he keeps his finger on the trigger. he doesn’t know what to do, so he starts reciting questions— ones he’s asked before, differently, with varied outcomes.

“where were you a year ago on december sixteenth, around 9:12? ... pm. at night. answer! and don't you fuckin' lie to me!”

[vastiitas]

"people don't change. you know that."

Fists clenched to white knuckles, his eyes fling up to Colt's. Heat flashes.

You know that rattles around like an acrid condemnation and it stains his tongue with the taste of petrol.

"Horseshit," Cole snaps this out like he's hurling a punch, but it fractures out brittle, splinters on the rocks of his voice. His shoulders volley up, haunches set to a hackle-raise.

( Brazen and brash, an exposed nerve screaming. If people didn't change, then where does that leave him? DEAD BOY, FAILURE, SELF-MADE ORPHAN. )

"Sounds like a two-bit cop-out to avoid tryin'."

[vastiitas]

it was, like, this middle aged couple who were having a dispute while driving bc they been having some brewing Marital Problems over the course of a few months. They basically never get the whole story about the banditos; never knew they were in potential danger. they get out of there w cole and drive to the nearest town cos it'd be faster than trying to get an ambulance or a helicopter over (though, procedurally speaking, it'd be safer to wait, especially w the threat of a broken neck; but human error and human panic, etc etc). cole gets a weird glimpse of domestic life bc they try to take responsibility over it, but he leaves thru the window after he's recovered, after dinner, after he thanks them sincerely for everything that they've done for him. leaves a note on the bed that reiterates these sentiments, but says that he can't save their marriage for them, etc etc.

[vastiitas]

pre-tween cole deffo had a black-out rage episode beating the shit out of some other, older tween in one of the orphanages bf he got yoinked to another house,

[vastiitas]

nap time pt 2, ft el hermano, el moco- @quick-drawn lkasdjfk slappin it on here as per requested

[vastiitas]

" — 'm sorry...'bout yesterday." he better accept this, colt's not usually one for sorry's —

@quick-drawn

Cole gimaces: pinched eyes, the grit of teeth briefly exposed by a peeling of lips. His torso is in mid-twist, hands shoved against the haul of straw. Stray scraps of hay fray out, scratches itchy where it manages to poke into an exposed arm. Brows knitting, he busies himself with launching the bale into the loft. It lands, thunking dull, against the boards and Cole tries not to think too hard about how this sounds a lot like the crash collapse of a body.

"Weren't your fault," He answers mullishly. His voice wisps out softer than he's used to when talking to Colt, but the memory of yesterday's tribulation's has its fangs to his jugular, bleeds him out into slanted shoulders and a weary expression. He inhales, groping distractedly for the next bale, "'Ppreciate it, though."

[vastiitas]

"that's...gotta be one'a th'prettiest girls i've ever seen..." — don't think i forgot 'bout rose,

Colton's enraptured staring leaves no questions on who he's talking about. She's wedged between two dust-rotten aisles, appraising two stocks of different branded feed. She's... all right, Cole reckons. Dressed nice and simple in Sunday whites, hair done sleek with the care of a brush. Another glance at Colt's smitten-drenched expression has him scoffing out a burst of noise, a single syllable breath that doesn't make it in full to a laugh.

"Oughta use your mouth t'go talk t'her if you're gonna leave it open like that," He shoves the heel of a fist light-heartedly against Colt's slack-jawed expression, grinning lop-sided, "Before a fly wanders in."

[vastiitas]

smthing smthing the irony of cole's situation finding @quick-drawn is that he is forced to remain cole cassidy in whom he presumes and wants dead but is also anchored by that very same force into desiring to stay alive.

[vastiitas]

"i'll make it quick — promise."

He's not sure if it's the nerves or the fact that he's been stabbed, but he's blinking through the cold drench of sweat that's dribbled over his eyes. He squeezes his teeth into a salty, dirt-seasoned roll of fabric, tries to avoid tonguing the rough ribs of cotton that's got the taste of motor grease. The only response he can offer Colton is a grunt, fisting a grip on the other's sleeve sitting at the shoulder. He eyes the blade that is red-hot and angry held in the other's hand. It glowers off the tint of amber that flecks his copper browns. He breathes out shaky.

Fuck. This is going to hurt like a cunt.

And, yet, still, it's a better alternative to bleeding out and dying to some stupid dipshit who thought 10 bucks was worth killing somebody over. Bitch. Who just fucking stabs somebody and doesn't finish the job? What the fuck-

Cole makes another muffled noise, gnarls his brows and screws his eyes shut. His fingers curl just a little bit tighter over Colt's shoulder, coiling into a brace.

Fuck your promise, hermano - Just do it.

[vastiitas]

@quick-drawn

He plants the butt of his rifle's stock next to him, kneeling down to a crouch over a series of hoof prints. They are dark indentations, packing a rhythm where the earth has been palmed, scooped, and upheaved. His hand hovers over where the impression burrows bolder than the second set whispering behind it. "It's a ram," He murmurs, and the breath it's packaged itself in sounds more addressed to himself than the present company involved. His eyes flick up, "They got those big horns on 'em. Makes their front prints deeper than their back set. It's how y'can tell."

The dirt beneath his boots crunches out gritty and crackling as he shifts and shuffles. Cole braces his weight against his rifle as he pushes himself to his feet. "Folklore says the deeper the print, the heavier their rack." He slips the rifle's shooting sling over his neck, peering over at Colton who's half-doused between a valley's blue shadow and the orange sunrise cresting over it. The air's dry, crisp. Not yet baked. He huffs and the air comes out skittering in clouds.

"Bigger the ram, too, but I reckon we best keep an eye out. They'll hit us right off a cliff if we don't shoot 'em first."

[vastiitas]

"Reckon I ain't ever asked b'fore," Colton leans inquisitively to the wooden handle of a shovel — admittedly using the query to take a breather from the back breaking work of shoveling stalls for an hour straight. And, well...he'd be LYING if he said the thought hadn't crossed his mind before...

" — what happened exactly? Y'know...like, back home...?"

"The hell do you mean?" comes hurling out before he can even think to stop it and he's straightening from his stoop to fix Colton a bemused look beneath sweat-drenched brows. He gnaws the inside of his cheek, gritting callouses against the inside of his gloves as he squeezes and twists his palm against the handle of his own shovel. He clunks its rusted head against the floor, mind toppling over itself as he haphazardly rifles his way through his memory of the past week for some sort of issue he might've ran into at the farm house.

His lips are twisting into a scowl. What stupid shit did he stir now--

The tension in his expression abruptly blinks out, knocked obsolete by the blistering shade of a belated and unwelcome realization. Oh. His shoulders stiffen, pitching up and stilling to some poor man's imitation of Rigor Mortis.

And maybe he's just that, for a little bit. A corpse with nothing to say. Breath sunk to a slow and shallow stagnation, heartbeat exiled to the land of the dead.

( You don't reach that far back unless you're looking for your own grave. The one that still doesn't have a body. The one that stains your fingertips black and purple with the ink of your rotten, godforsaken name. There is so much shit left in the wake of your shadow, you are forced hurtling forward. Turning back is Hades; turning back is damnation.)

He blinks slowly, gaze locked to a space buried a million miles away beyond the mulch-stained floor and its scatter of stray straw constellations.

And, with that same sluggishness, his brows screw right back to a knot. They lock, contemplative and troubled, lacking that heat burst just seconds earlier. He grips both hands on the shovel's handle, drags the nail of his thumb against wood grain and itches it back and forth.

What's your Story?'s have become a dime a dozen icebreaker minted in the aftermath of the War. Strangers looking to hold hands with strangers as they straggle to face the breaking dawn of an uncertain world.

A default answer is already spring-loaded on his tongue. Just another story. Just another statistic. Most folk don't press for more and neither does he want them to.

But, Colt's... fucking different. Unfortunately.

His lungs flatten out a harsh gust of air and he slides his eyes closed, shoulders curling forward and slumping to an unwilling and disgruntled deflation. He doesn't realize that he's brought the shovel closer to his chest, that it's pointed end skitters and scratches a thin line through the floor.

"Just a... shit turn of luck," He grouses and wrings the damn handle like it'll give him some sort of peace. Its end juts into his shoulder. The knit of his brow gnarls and he struggles to scrape together the words that he needs to press past the noose that's bearing down on his throat like the bull-heavy blade of a guillotine. He's never had to walk through it before. Never had to verbalize and dissect the autopsy. His own voice warbles distantly to him; the faux frustration of stitching together sentences lands deadpan and vacant.

"Ain't any... back home left. Everything's..." He trails off and he realizes he's never said this either and the strength bottoms out from his voice, collapses in on itself, and leaves it desecrated and wispy, "Gone."

He scuffs his boot against a misplaced strand of hay. Dirt crunches. He dithers.

"War came through," he mutters, and the words rock out over an uneven turbulence. it's tempting to leave it there. It's all the explanation anyone ever needs for a town wiped off the face of the planet, blasted into redaction from maps, left abandoned and forgotten as a dirt speck by everybody else.

Still, it's quid pro quo. You show me your's, I'll show you mine. Their stories are fucked up inverses that start and end with a fucking gun. Colt's told him his piece and it's a pound of wounded flesh for a pound of wounded flesh. Cole owes him his due.

So, he slits in the proverbial dressing knife just above the stomach, and saws.

He chews the bottom of his lip, digging teeth to the seat of it, and that distant point miles and miles away is suddenly rushing forward, unrelenting, gripping him so violently by the shoulders that they jerk in a recoil. there is a monstrosity of a wave crashing in, sucking him under, crushing him beneath the weight of oceans as it rips him violently away from the salvation of a surface.

"Those... drop ships deployed some couple of miles East from us. Didn't know 'til they hit. We just-" He wrenches in an inhale, forces it through his lungs; knife snagged on a rib, "Our town - It was between 'em and the big city they were after. We weren't- much a consideration, and they made us out t'be exactly what they thought of us." Nothing. Ashes. Rubble. Stampeded through without a second thought. "Got caught beneath the house. Roof fell through," Whole house fell through, he was just stepping out of the living room from the kitchen, the television had been crackling, "Knocked my head-" Blood blossoming over the eyes, shaky vision colored red; the world is fucking rupturing and there is a horrible banshee shrieking in the air melded from a thousand voices howling. The air is strangled with ash, broiling to fields flashed to fire. Jesus Christ, where is the Gun? Where is the fucking Gun?

"Saw my Ma and Pa," He hasn't called Joel that in years, and he finds his voice guttering to the trying strokes of a croak, "Caught out in the front yard. Omnics left and right. Looked like," He twitches, fingers flexing, "Cattle. Bein' herded like that."

Firing squad. Line em up, shoot em down.

His grip loosens on the shovel handle. Bile burns in his stomach, buzzes vitriol. It feels, vaguely, like his entrails are smashing into each other, wrestling into knots. But, this, too, is far away. Slipping between fingers, white noise.

"Had my revolver on me. Had a shot. Just needed to shoot one."

Every syllable beats out blank and hollowed out.

He drags his gaze up against gravity to meet Colton's. He speaks plainly. This is not a confession. Fact printed in neat, black print on stark white paper, delivered impersonally on a severed, dial-tone disconnect:

"I missed."

[vastiitas]

@quick-drawn

You've never really thought about how much water can feel like a damn anchor. There are infinite hands dragging vitriolic claws on your clothes and it presses your shirt flush against the skin while eager and hungry and trying to spirit away any and all excess. Usually, Cole is dressed for the occasion. Usually, he isn't battling the sudden sour onset of dread and nausea and the start of a full throttle heart attack.

Colton crashes head first into water, tripping over a shitty ass board that's welted through and water-rotted on the heels following a wrestler's tumble. There's a blazing splash, white-water ripples that send the water undulating and smacking into the dock's water posts. A second ticks into two and stumbles into three. By the time it pours into four and the water begins to settle, Cole is ripping off gloves, shucking off boots, and tearing through the air after him.

The wind sears through his ears - a scream abruptly swallowed by the dull murmur of water. Everything is murky, and it's sheer blind luck that reaching out a hand drives his knuckles against something vaguely Colton-shaped. His palm finds denim and he fists all that he can of it while driving all other limbs towards the rippling lights denoting up. He's never had to carry anyone before, not in water, and the exertion is worming a burn into his arms, lodging an ache in the lungs. Air bubbles are bursting in plumes around him. The surface is so damn far.

And, yet, they manage to shatter through it. He can hear Colton coughing up water-logged lungs just barely over his own gasps. Desperate, beseeching air. The paddle towards the bank has their heads barely bobbing above water. He swaps his grip, hauling both hands against the other's bib and kicks until they're pile-driving into rocks and stone and pebbles where the water has shallowed out and leaks in flimsy, shushing waves into the gaps between them.

Cole topples; rocks scatter loose, clattering. Folded over on his hands and knees, chest heaving for air, he thinks that God could take a picture of them now and call it: Drenched Mongrels.

"COLTON," He smacks his hand into the other boy's arm with a bruising force. His heart is jack hammering and for the first time since leaving everything, his hands are wrecked into a viscious tremble. For all the lack of air rendering his voice raspy, adrenaline fills the gut gushing with hot-blood. It spills out of him, a throaty snap that shatters through the air and bursts into cracks, "Were you ever plannin' on tellin' me that you couldn't fuckin' SWIM!?"