One Who Seeks

[Ruggahissy]

Josh looked at the two figures in the distance, one dangling the handcuffs.

They shined and he gazed upon them, shining.

((Josh James continued from Take Me Somewhere Nice))

He had been tromping angrily through the snowy landscape, blood dripping down the side of his face near his ear. He fumed, fingers clenched, gun gripped tightly.

Maybe he had killed Cassie, maybe he hadn't. He didn't really care either way as long as she was hurt. Then he stopped his stomping and slowed to a typical walk.

Was that right?

He felt a little bad now. But he told himself that she slashed him, he was within his rights. What were rights anyway? If she hadn't slashed him, Josh wouldn't have shot her. If she hadn't run, he wouldn't have shot her. There were so many choices she could have made that ended in him not shooting her. She just made all the wrong ones.

And what about your choices?

What about them? Josh wasn't used to making them. He was used to being there, being led to the next event, pulled forward aimlessly by the current of daily life.

What about my choices? he thought in angry denial.

Then he saw two figures up ahead, a boy and a girl sitting around an unlit fire pit. Behind them was a cabin, and a row of some shapes he wasn't sure about. Josh held the gun in a ready position and walked up just in time to hear the last bits of conversation and see the handcuffs sway as the boy pulled them out.

---

Do you still hunger?

---

Josh shook his head and approached.

"Um, are you hungry?" he asked softly. "Y-You asked for food just now?"

It was Karin, someone he knew the name and face, but basically nothing else.

Josh looked cautiously at the boy and took a seat near Karin, gun pointed at him and his gun, but not yet hostile.

"If you help me, um, with my -- 'cause I'm hurt. I have some extra."

Josh plopped his two full bags down in front of them, three people's worth of food and supplies within.

[Ryuki]

(Wendy Kennedy, continued from Lonely & Homesick)

Wendy strolled through the woods, looking down at her map. She was deciding where to go for better shelter. She could go back to the research station, and perhaps find a room with a bed to sleep in. Preferably, one without a dead body under it. Sure, the bed wasn't the best quality, but it beats camping out in the cold.

She then spotted a few people up ahead. From the looks of it, they looked to have set up a camp of at the cabin. Taking a few steps closer, she recognized one of them. Daniel, who she'd last seen with Taylor. Happy to see a familiar face, Wendy wanted to shout to Daniel, but then she noticed the guns. Daniel was holding his shotgun, and another boy held their own gun. Wendy cautiously walked up towards the group.

"Um, hi," Wendy said softly, "I, er, come in peace."

[Gundham]

The handcuffs dangled in front of Karin.

"I wanna handcuff my drill to my wrist," Karin said. "That way if someone tries to steal it, they're out of luck."

A good enough explanation for the moment. Probably something that'd actually be worth doing, now that she thought about it. She wasn't sure how she'd use the handcuffs but more weapons was better than no weapons, and she'd certainly be able to come up with a use for it sooner or later. Adapt and survive, that was the whole point of SOTF, wasn't it?

She shoved the medical box at Daniel. "Here, just take what you want, and I'll take the handcuffs and any rations, deal?"

Before she caught any reply from him, in came probably the last person she expected to see - Josh. Josh from Christian club. Josh whose last name she didn't know. Or at least a boy who looked like Josh from Christian club, but had a very, very different demeanor, and three bags. Which... holy crap, was Josh the Josh from the morning announcements? Very Dennis Rader. Then again, Mal had tried to gun someone down, Juanita phallicided her boyfriend, and Karin herself was an accidental killer, so it wasn't like anybody in WaP was walking out of here innocent. Well, maybe Bethany Lyon, but that was probably only a matter of time.

Josh sat down, casually pointing a gun in Blahniel's direction. He seemed a lot more comfortable holding it than Blahniel did with his, which probably explained the bags.

His offer sounded good, but something about it felt just a little bit off. If he had three bags' worth of supplies, why didn't he just patch himself up? Why was he just giving away food for nothing in return? Couple that with his cut-up face and his whole demeanour and it just... felt fishy.

But then again... food was food. And she'd said it herself, hadn't she? She wasn't gonna survive out here on her own.

"Sure, sounds like a plan" she said to Josh, giving him a smile. "I don't have a lot of medical training or anything, but I'd be happy to patch you up in exchange for some food. I got robbed pretty badly, so I need all the help I can get."

Her eyes flicked downwards, to the gun. It drew all her attention, such that she barely even noticed the new girl coming in. "But, um, is it okay if I finish up what I'm doing here with Daniel real quick?"

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Daniel blinked. Weird plan, one he didn't entirely buy, but.

"Okay, sure," he said, pulling the kit towards him. Beggars and choosers, beggars and choosers. Besides, this was a pretty good deal, all things considered - some rations and something he didn't even want to begin with for something he needed.

When he raised his head, there was someone new there. It was rude to stare, he knew this, but still he did. He squinted slightly and tilted his head, as Karin spoke to him and smiled like she knew him. Daniel could have sworn he also knew him, from somewhere. Some time. But his name just eluded him.

He broke his gaze away. His eyes widened. He hadn't dared hope she was still alive. "Wendy!"

(Alive for how much longer? A day? A few hours? When will he next fail her? When will he next abandon her?)

Still, a smile came onto his face, and he waved. "Gimme a minute, but we gotta catch up."

The handcuffs' chains clinked slightly, as he tossed them onto the ground next to Karin. "Here you go, by the way. Have fun I guess."

Immediately, he had to suppress the urge to grimace at the accidental... Joke? Innuendo? She doesn't know about the ball gag. Still, he instantly regretting saying that.

[Ruggahissy]

There was suddenly ANOTHER newcomer. He looked back, ready to act if needed, but she didn't look familiar and seemed not to want his attention specifically. She also didn't look like she had a weapon or posed a real physical threat. And she was wearing khaki slacks. Josh held his gun closer and seemed to shrink slightly.

He went for one of his bags and suddenly Daniel had thrown a pair of handcuffs into the snow in front of them.

Josh blushed slightly from the implication, then turned back to the bag and unzipped it with one hand, maneuvering out half a loaf of bread that was in the bag and placing it in the snow at Karin's feet.

Daniel had gone to talk to the new arrival, so it was just Josh and Karin.

"Robbed? I'm - I'm sorry," he said quietly.

With one hand still on the gun he removed the first aid kit, then moved to awkwardly unbutton the top of his coat.

"I think Daniel's done with you, so..."

The coat was unbuttoned down to his waist. Josh hesitated, deliberating. He figured that he might as well get as much use out of this exchange as possible, and stretched the neck of his shirt over his shoulder.

His neck and shoulder were bare and revealed the bite mark on the base of his neck near his clavicle. Josh felt embarrassed exposing himself.

"How'd you get robbed? Sorry if you already just said it. I mean, I guess it'll take my mind off..."

He looked at Daniel.

He looked at the medical supplies.

"...your work."

[Ryuki]

Daniel had recognized Wendy, and seemed happy to see her. He came over after tossing aside some kind of chained object.

It's good to see you're okay.," said Wendy, "How have you been?"

Wendy looked over briefly towards the two others that Daniel was with. One was a boy who looked like they'd been hurt a lot. The girl looked sort of familiar. Wendy had seen her before, but she couldn't put a name to her face.

"So, if you don't mind me asking," said Wendy, turning her attention back to Daniel, "What happened to Taylor? I mean, I know what happened to them, but how did it happen?"

[Gundham]

Karin had observed a lot about Josh in the past few seconds. The way the handcuffs caught his attention and the way he pinkened slightly when Blaniel made a reference to enjoying them. The way he put the bread on the ground instead of handing it directly to her. The way his grip on the gun tightened a bit when Windy Wendy Kennedy arrived - though that last one could have just been physical revulsion, it was hard to tell.

Karin had a mental file on most people in her life. She'd been picked on enough to know the value of a good counterpunch. People tended to think twice about picking on the Crazy Alien Girl if they thought the Crazy Alien Girl was also The Girl Who Knows About That Thing You Did. When it came to Josh, though, her mind threw up nothing but question marks. The most she could have said about him before this was that he was... existent. And that he was named Josh. Christian kid, obviously. Kept to himself. Looked uncomfortable in his own skin a lot of the time - which was more or less why she hadn't paid any attention to him. Josh From Christian Club didn't register as a threat, so there'd never been any need to stockpile ammunition against him.

But judging by the bags, she wasn't the only one who'd been wrong about that.

She popped open the medical kit he'd provided, and rifled through it, buying a few more seconds to think.

Josh had singled her out to bargain instead of Daniel, even though she was a murderer and Daniel wasn't. She could chalk that up to Daniel having a gun and her not, but the way he'd put the bread down in the snow instead of tossing it or handing it to her suggested... something. Now Josh had his coat open, and had pulled his shirt down to expose a bite mark on his shoulder. Looked real squeamish about it. The bite mark itself was a pretty big clue about how the fight had gone - didn't speak to a high level of competence if he could get himself Dracula'd while (presumably) holding a gun.

Yeah, okay. She had the vibe. Confident, but not bossy. Didn't want to piss him off. Better to be a capable minion worthy of rewarding. "That's a nasty bite mark," she said. "I can wipe it down with some antiseptic, but you're probably want to do that periodically to prevent infection. There's a lot of bacteria in a person's mouth."

She ripped the foil packaging off of an antiseptic wipe, and held it up for his approval. "Okay if I use this? It'll probably sting a bit."

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Daniel glanced over his shoulder, at the bag left in the tent, at Karin and... new guy whose name was still frustratingly out of reach. He knew it, he was certain, it was something really common, he thought it started with a J, and that certainty lead him to linger on his face just a touch too long.

A touch too much eye contact.

He quickly looked away, back to Wendy. "I- I'm really glad you're alive," he began.

He drew in a breath, gun resting uneasily in his arm. Time to talk about Taylor, huh?

"Tay... I didn't see all of it. I arrived in time to scare Katelyn off, but too late to actually, like. Stop it." He held his tongue before he apologized prematurely, and too much. "So I don't know what else happened between them. Sorry."

There was a twitching instinct he had since he saw Wendy show up - weird, considering she, like Tay, wasn't quite a friend before he met her here. Still, if he were to truly live life like he could die tomorrow, because he could, he might as well. He set the shotgun down by his feet, and raised his arms, a bit.

"Can I hug you, by the way?"

[Ruggahissy]

"I just got this one too," he said, pointing at the 2-inch long slice up from his jaw near his left ear. He moved closer to her on the sitting log. He watched her with little emotion as she pulled things out of the first aid box, but his face became slightly redder when she said the bite was deep.

"Is it?" he said, trying to suppress a bashful smile. "I must not have realized at the time."

He nodded his acquiescence for using the antiseptic wipe. Josh didn't remember all that much about Karin. Maybe some of the other kids in Christian club had said she was weird or a bit too gossipy, but it wasn't said to him. Just sort of near him while he'd been standing there.

"So... your robbery?" he said trying again, slightly more insistent. He watched the other pair carefully. Josh's right knee bounced up and down. In his chest, he felt a tight unpleasant sensation.

[Ryuki]

"I see," Wendy sighed. That was unfortunate. One thing was certain. They needed to watch out for Katelyn Graves. She'd been mentioned multiple times on the announcements in the past few days.

Daniel asked if he could hug Wendy.

"Yes," Wendy said smiling, "I could use one too."

The two embraced. Wendy let out a sigh of relief. It felt nice having someone be glad for her safety.

"So what, can you tell me about those two?," Wendy asked.

[Gundham]

Karin gave a studious "Ah yes" sort of doctor-style nod as Josh pointed out the other cut. "I'll take care of that too."

He asked again about how she'd come to be robbed, but kept his eyes fixed on Windy and Blahniel, who were hugging. Gross. Karin wrinkled her nose, and rubbed some sanitizer on her hands before unfurling the antiseptic wipe.

"I spent the first three days at a bar in town. There were a bunch of us holed up together, thought there was safety in numbers. It was me and a bunch of girls, and Victor Grail from the basketball team."

She hesitated briefly as it occurred to her that she had no idea whether Josh and Victor had crossed paths at Endecott. She was pretty sure she remembered him being on one of the teams, but she wasn't sure which one. Could be that he and the meathead were friends. She applied the antiseptic wipe, working it carefully with her fingers to make sure she swabbed the area completely, getting it into all the little divots that the teeth had left in his skin, backing off whenever Josh looked like he was getting too tense.

"There were rumors going around that Victor was... being kind of creepy with the girls, giving off a bit of a stalker vibe, you know? Some of the other girls decided to confront him about it, and he got really angry, demanding to know who was saying it, and..." She shrugged. "Who else were they gonna blame? They all told him that I was the one who's spoken up, and he went nuts. He grabbed me around the throat and was screaming, and then he just threw me. I thought I was gonna die. I probably would have, if I hadn't managed to grab a gun from one of the other girls. He stole my pack and was running away, and I tried to shoot him, but I missed, and... well... you heard the announcement."

She withdrew the cloth. The bite mark was as clean as it was gonna get. She smoothed out a bandage over the area, and taped it in place with a few strips of adhesive, before turning her attention to the cut on his cheek. "Anyway... the other girls all freaked out. You know. They grabbed the gun off me, started screaming at me that I was a murderer, like I'd done it on purpose."

More antiseptic. She rubbed it in good, to get off the extraneous dried blood.

"So I ran off. Victor had my bag, so I snatched Shannon's and ran off with it. Got a few measly supplies and a power drill I can barely lift. And some handcuffs now, I guess."

She finished the cleanup, then used a couple of butterfly closure strips to bridge the gash. Her technique was hardly expert, but it seemed like it'd get the job done.

"All right, I think that'll about do it. You're all patched up. Thanks a lot for the bread. That'll go a long way, I think." She thought for a second and then laughed drily. "I guess that's the only perk of being small, huh? I don't have to eat much."

She let her smile linger for a second, then looked back at him, as though a thought had just occurred to her. "You know... if you ever need to be patched up again, I'd always be up for more bread. Or... I could just come with you, if you want. I could help." Her eyes flicked down towards the bags, then back up to him. "I could help... with everything."

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Daniel glanced back at them, for a moment, before looking back to Wendy.

"Not much, honestly. She," he gestured to Karin, "Offered to trade me some of her medical supplies since I was low after... y'know. Though she seemed kinda beat up herself?"

(Selflessness, stupidity? Wouldn't he like to know.)

"And... I don't know anything about the other guy," he admitted. "His name's on the tip of my tongue. It's..."

A few snaps of the finger, as he thought. James? No, Joshua, last name James. Joshua James! ...wait, fuck. His expression, the light in his eye, dimmed just as quickly as it had brightened with revelation. But Karin surely knew him, right? They were in the prayer circle together! But she didn't say anything.

(Selflessness, stupidity... or some much grander ulterior motive. They were people more underhanded than Daniel was right now.)

He slowly turned back. It was rude to stare, and he couldn't quite meet Josh in the eye, and he tried to keep his expression as flat as possible because he knew full well what at least one enraged double(?) killer was capable of dishing out. But, he was staring, as if to confirm it was really, actually him. He stared like he knew him, because he kind of did.

[Ruggahissy]

Josh looked down at his hands and her lap as Karin worked on him.

"Mm. Sounds bad," he said in response to the news of Victor being predatory with the girls, but the response lacked legitimate concern in the tone. He looked past Karin and noticed the wolf carcasses that were in a heap by the cabin along with two bodies of their fellow classmates.

Someone caused the rumors. Rumors saying he gave off a vibe?

Josh had enough wherewithal to gather that Karin was more to blame for her predicament than she was trying to portray.

Occasionally he flinched from a particularly hard dig with the antiseptic, but for the most part he continued to look at the wolves. He thought of Shu’s words to him, that he was a bad liar. Maybe everyone from the Christian club was.

But it didn’t matter to him what she wanted him to believe. He had no desire to push it.

“That sounds like a tough time. You’re lucky you got out at all,” he said at a same level of being disengaged as before, operating on a sort of low-power mode.

Karin declared she was done and Josh pulled his shirt back over his shoulder and started to rebutton his coat. He touched the bandage on his face delicately and wondered how he looked.

Then there was a slight, almost imperceptible shift. It was a change in her eyes, her smile, her voice, her posture, as she made her offer.

"With… everything?" he repeated, following her eyeline, then back to her. His voice had a deeper, breathy quality to it now.

He assessed her differently, eyes sharper. She had definitely not been truthful in her account of events.

It was the same shift that he’d seen when Dani had started giving him medical aid too. It was fascinating.

"Karin, I was looking at those wolves over there," he said, pointing to them. "It reminded me of something. There was a wolf who lived in the snow, but because he was the color of snow, people didn’t see him. Because no one saw him, no one was warned about him. One day a deer approached the wolf while it was sleeping. It thought it could kill him and take his food, but he woke up and killed the deer instead. A little later another deer saw him, saw the blood on his coat, and was worried for the other deer, so it attacked him. Obviously, the deer lost. Then, a third didn’t see him until it was too late. She made him angry and... he ate her too."

Josh now looked up and noticed Daniel looking at them with those upturned green eyes of his.

"The wolf didn’t go out looking for deer to kill. They came across his path and he did what wolves do. Because they do what they like. Because they can. Good fortune for the next deer though, that he wasn’t hungry.”

He smiled at Daniel, canine teeth visible.

[Ryuki]

"Uh huh," Wendy said, "The two of them definitely look like they've been through some stuff."

Following Daniel's gaze, she noticed the other boy giving them a smile. Wendy waved at the boy slightly.

"I just learned this morning a friend of mine, Ashlee, was shot," said Wendy, "I was on my way out of this forest when I came across you and the others just now."

Wendy looked at the pair still by the fire pit, making sure they didn't hear her next question.

"Have either of them been mentioned on the announcements?," asked Wendy in a hushed tone.

[Gundham]

Josh looked away, which was fortunate because Karin's poker face cracked, just for a second, into a contemptuous sneer.

A wolf? Really? Was that supposed to scare her or something? Ooh, thank goodness the big scary wolf boy isn't hungry for my quivering, vulnerable flesh, and I can go trit-trit-trotting back to my fellow deer! Thank you for allowing me to live, you big scary powerful monster, you! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm getting a case of the vapors from this dreadful fright, and I need to go drape soulfully across the nearest chaise lounge about it...

Well, okay. To be fair, he did have a gun, and he'd killed people, so he did pose a legitimate threat. But you couldn't take that much cringe seriously, no matter how much ammo was backing it up. Like, how was she supposed to respond to that Aesop's fable incel bullshit? It sounded like something Rebekah Hayes would say if she took up day drinking. But, hey, if he wanted to commit to his little lone wolf fantasy, she wasn't gonna bother pointing out the flaws; namely that a) the term "lone wolf" implied that wolves don't usually hunt alone; b) by his definition she was a wolf in her own right, thank you very much, and wolves didn't eat other wolves; c) all of those wolves he was pointing at were dead, and were dead specifically because they'd tangled with something they couldn't beat; and d) the most famous story about a wolf involved it getting its ass beat by a Karin-sized girl with poor fashion sense. Hell, with needle dick energy he was rocking, he'd probably pull out a gun and shoot her in a fit of microchode rage before she got halfway down the list. Then he'd go find somewhere to stand dramatically and brood.

She thought about losing a potential source of abundant food, and thus managed a very genuine disappointed look.

"A lone wolf, huh? That's too bad," she said to Josh, keeping her voice low so Windy and Blahniel wouldn't hear - and to add a little more gravitas to the nauseatingly edgy thing she was about to say next. "I was thinking the wolf might eat better if he formed a pack with another wolf who just so happened to look like a deer. But, looks like you're doing fine, so..."

Her ears perked up at something. She could have sworn that Windy had just said Ashlee's name. Could have been something else, but you know what? She'd take it as an exit cue anyway. Karin plucked her bread up out of the snow, and stuffed it into her bag, along with the handcuffs.

"But you know what? I think I'm gonna head out now. Gotta... go graze. Come find me if you need patching up again, huh?"