bloodandbrass

bullshit you don't.

Got no interest in dying. Pretty sure you'd have an easier time of it if I did.

half of you maggots go running straight at the first trap you see just to get my attention and you think that ain't a death wish?

My job to get as many of them out of a trial as possible, course I'm gonna come for your attention straight off.

[ he can't speak for the others. some of them are like him, some of them are... not very aware of their surroundings. ]

but not yourself?

sounds like a death wish to me.

Just because you don't know what it's like to give a shit about other people doesn't mean I'm out here chasing death.

[ that'd hurt more if he actually thought about it. ]

keep telling yourself that. looks the same to me.

Course it does, you heartless fuck. Doesn't mean it is.

until there's nothing left of you to protect them.

[ this brief moment of awareness of their surroundings brought to you by the chill wind of the entity saying trial time. ]

We're all on borrowed time here. Doing what I can with what I've got.

[ he's already painfully aware he's probably going to burn out and get tossed long before anyone else, thanks. ]

that make you feel better about it all?

Why do you care?

i don't.

just seen this happen before.

Bullshit you don't. Wouldn't be asking me all these questions if you didn't. Not exactly known for being a chatterbox, are you?

I know how shit goes for me here. Don't need you dredging it up to entertain yourself.

this shit doesn't 'entertain' anybody but the ghost.

you've all got a death wish. you're just too dumb to realize it.

[ any other replies will have to get a clap back when he's done with the trial, because that's when the entity snatches him up, leaving the whole estate empty and only partly protected again. at least for a while. ]

[ david could reply, or he could stew on this until it makes him angry enough to storm over to macmillan and argue in person. ]

[ surprise, surprise, he's going over there. always an eerie quiet about the place, so it doesn't occur to him that trapper's not even there right now. depending on how long it takes him to navigate the place versus how long that trial takes, he might not even find that out. ]

[ the forest is as empty and silent as ever, and so are all the buildings, devoid of any sign of his presence. there's all the traps, obviously, but without him around to patrol between them. to make sure they're all set and that nobody's opting to trespass.

that means the mine is empty, and his workshop unguarded other than the traps littering the way in. with no signs of life anywhere, the whole realm may as well be abandoned.

trapper isn't back for a while. whether david wants to wait for him, or just leave him a mess to get pissed off over, is up to him. ]

[ it's a little confusing at first, the second time david disarms a trap and doesn't see or hear a hint on trapper coming his way to find out who's on his turf this time. it does click eventually, that the ornery bastard must be in a trial, because where else does he go, and that leaves david kind of impotently angry. ]

[ he could just leave, that would be sensible. contemplates breaking a bunch of traps the way they used to just to get some of that anger out, plus the added bonus of knowing it'll righteously piss off trapper when he gets back. ]

[ could make himself useful while he's out here, which is the logic that has david slowly make his way down toward the workshop. see if he can't nab a couple of things that'll come in handy later. well the first thing he does when he gets down there is stop to hastily clean and bandage a hand after one of those traps snapped closed faster than he expected and gouged a chunk out of the side, but then. then he will peruse the goods. ]

[ the silence continues as david moves, and it's the silence of an empty world, an empty mine, an empty workshop. the silence devoid of life, instead of the silence of someone waiting without making noise. for now, he's in the clear.

the workshop is as it always is. organized, surprisingly so, even if the workbenches are cluttered with tools and fragments of traps. weapons and masks hang on the walls alongside old traps. the forge, a real-ass old-fashioned forge, glows dully along one wall. broken crates stacked in corners hold his tools of the trade that make the traps that much worse: bottles of dye and foggy liquid, springs and coils shining with something that may or may not be blood, and broken traps, repurposed for new uses.

one workbench has schematics for new traps and tools. another, bloodier, is one used for fixing up the inevitable injuries he winds up with over time that sometimes need a weld rather than a bandage. there's darker corners, shelves covered in dust and cobwebs and sheets. and no set traps - not in here.

survivors have scavenged from his workshop for ages now, adding to their toolboxes and sometimes their personal souvenir collections. it's frustrating to have gotten used to it. but a trap in here is one he might step in, so evan's opted not to set them. just outside - and there's other traps, too, instead of bear traps, that tell him things that survivors might not realize, like when someone's crept in the permanently unlocked door of his workshop. ]

[ this is far from the first time david's been in here, usually at the behest of jake or felix, but david's never really stopped to look around. some killers, you generally can't afford to waste time before they're breathing down your neck demanding blood in exchange for you daring to step foot on their property, and trapper pretty much defines that archetype. but. ]

[ maybe it's just the fact that any other time david's been here it was with something specific in mind that slows him down this time, no idea what would be most useful to nab. something that'd go good in a toolbox, maybe? david walks the length of the place while he wraps the bandage around his hand, doesn't think to look for anything except trapper's signature bear traps, more distracted wondering if he even makes anything except weapons and traps when he looks at the forge. ]

[ the thing that really catches his attention is the bloody workbench, david stops to get a closer look at the spread, nudges what he thinks is a welder (he's not a tool guy okay) with the back of his hand and makes a slightly involuntary noise of disgust at the tackiness of almost-but-not-completely dry blood on it. ]

[ there's other types of traps, but not much else. there isn't much of a reason to make anything else, other than weapons. half of those even barely make it past the fog's inevitable entropy anyway. so there won't be much else to david to find ... that evan's made, anyway.

the bloody workbench has bandages, even needles with something that might be wire and might just be ancient wool thread stained and stiffened by blood coiled around them. it's not really clear. little pieces of metal, slim and malleable that can be embedded into skin over wounds that won't close, or patch up other metal pieces.

it's one of those little insights into the fact that killers are as much meat for the entity as survivors. or maybe just that evan can't not get into fights, literally all the time.

under that workbench is a box, half-covered by bloody cloth, and in that one is a pile of offerings. mostly wreaths and rotting branches - he doesn't keep the best ones out where ghost face can steal them. but, all the same, the offerings that give them an advantage, or at least a little favor.

meanwhile, out in the trees, the fog wisps back in. ]

[ it's weird, somehow it's just never occurred to him that trapper might sometimes need to patch up his own wounds, even despite the fact that david has left the man bloody himself. david idly wonders how often he needs this little station, how often he gets into fights, especially ones that end this messily. trapper complains, but he's part of the problem too. ]

[ david kneels, expecting to find more "medical" supplies under the bench, but instead it's that box of offerings. david leafs through them out of curiosity, half contemplates stealing them but instead he just tucks it back where it was with a sigh. stands and starts to move toward the back. ]

[ the back of the workshop is a mess of old things. old enough that there's dust to leave footprints in - and there's not many of evan's there. there's mostly tools, too old and rusted to use, or hunting supplies rotting away. several taxidermied animals, moth-eaten and falling apart.

but also hints of the life that came before this place. it's storage for old, useless things from a world outside the fog. all the things the macmillans had no use for over the years, as the money piled up but the need for it faltered. old stacks of paperwork. accounting ledgers. diaries, moldered into unreadability.

paintings, stacked up in one corner, so dusty it's not clear who they're of.

and evan himself stalks back into the darkness of the forest, immediately knowing something's wrong but not being totally clear on what. someone was here - but are they still? he follows the sprung traps to the mine, and then realizes he's not alone.

he doesn't rush in or charge, though. he's not in a good mood - rarely is, after trials of getting smashed over the skull by pallets and stabbed with whatever the maggots could get their hands on - but he keeps calm enough as he makes his way into the mine, to stop in the claustrophobic hall and ... wait. ]

[ despite the sense of unease, the way something in the air has changed, david keeps moving through to the back of the workshop. pauses to take a look at something-- a manifest, an accounting ledger, a bunch of admin for an old mine.]

[ it's the paintings that really pull his attention. david takes a knee in front of the canvases, carefully dusts the top one with a hand and a puff of breath to blow the dust away. he doesn't recognise whoever the painting's of, not at a first look, but all the shit back here looks old as hell, like maybe it's from before the fog. ]

[ the paint has faded and yellowed, even down in the darkness, and the figures under the dust are hard to identify without much light. the one on top has two figures, one seated, one standing just behind the chair. they look similar - related.

evan put all the paintings down here years before the fog as the house started to fall into disrepair, and the one of him and his father was the last one to take down, because he was told not to get rid of this one. he did it anyway. it wasn't as if archie was moving around the house at that point, and something about the painting make evan angry every time he looked at it.

neither one of them looks very happy in the picture, but that's about par the course. evan might be recognizable after a few seconds even with the hair. the scar over his mouth is the same, even if the rest aren't there. archie won't be, but his expression and his similarity to evan will tell a lot more than even evan himself probably ever will.

the man himself waits in the hallway, letting his anger seethe. no point in giving a warning now. ]

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