bakerstreet | Covered in blood

I gave you blood, blood, gallons of the stuff...

1. Another day that ends in Y. When mass murder needs to happen you’re the weapon for the job. Employed? Owned by a secret organization? Untamed embodiment of extreme violence? Either way someone’s going to try to stop you eventually.

2. How did I get here? The last thing you remember everything was fine and hunky dory… Wait, is this b-blood?! Hopefully there's someone who can help you and not hurt you.

3. Justified. This is war and wars are won with weapons, not words! Cut through the masses knowing what you are doing is right. Does that mean the enemy of your enemy is a friend, or is everyone not part of the solution a problem?

4. Humor/Crack option. This really is your blood. Do you have intense nosebleeds every time someone even moderately attractive catches your eye? Are you Deadpool and constantly leaving heaps of blood everywhere? WHO IS GOING TO CLEAN THIS MESS UP?

5. Smut. Bloodplay, nuff said.

6. Gruesome to some, beautiful to you. Vampires, crazed artists, and evil scientists can eat their heart out. Or someone else’s…

7. Wilcard! Have something different in mind when you clicked? Go with it! Or re-roll/mix and match.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The way the silence sits between them is uncomfortable if only because it's so rare that Jaskier manages to keep quiet for more than a few seconds, not that Cooper isn't a yapper in his own right. Though there's been a lot of that awkward silence since everything went down.

Normally this situation would be something else for them, Cooper glances to watch Jaskier remove his shirt and normally he'd be appreciating the view, but much like before he can only see the bruises and marks left from being a known associate of his. It stirs an anger in him that there's no real answer too, besides pushing Jaskier away, but by now it's too late for that. He should have done that a long time ago. Now people know, that boy and the ghoul are close. Cooper's eyes slide away from him as he lays down, back to Jaskier. The soft words over his shoulder have him humming low in response.

"... I was gonna bring her here." He speaks into the light of the lantern, "Keep her safe down here, way from all the bullshit up there." Cooper isn't one to talk about his past at all, not in any specifics, nor his family, but something drags it out of him. Maybe he's getting soft. Damn Vaultie.

Maybe it's Cooper's words from before that have emboldened Jaskier, or maybe all that blood loss from earlier is still taking a toll - six of one, half a dozen of the other? Carefully, he reaches out to touch Cooper's back, to trace along the lines of his skin under the clothing with calloused fingertips before pressing a little closer, not quite spooning but not quite not either.

It's a small bed, there's not a lot of space. There's none of the usual heat between them to this intimacy, but it's still intimacy none the less.

"You don't think she'd miss the sky?" Jaskier asks, guessing who he's talking about.

Maybe he's missed this sort of intimacy.

But he's convinced himself it's too dangerous to be this way with anyone, especially after so long. It was just another way to be hurt, hell not even emotionally, but he's not going to think about that. Not too much at least.

"Hmph, where she was there was no sky, wouldn't be much different than one of them fucking vaults." It's just which vault is she in. Where. Some vaults were so in your face they couldn't be missed, then there were others. Ones never meant to be found by no one, especially not him.

"... but in here locked up ain't living." And he doesn't want to find his daughter just to make her a prisoner.

Jaskier was intimately familiar with how claustrophobic a world without a sky could be. Especially if you had even an inkling that there was something else out there, something more. He slid his hand against Cooper's side, around his waist to gently hold onto him, cheek pressed against him. Warmth, closeness. His eyelids were getting very heavy.

"Sounds like you're a good dad," he murmured, soft.

There's a part of him that wants to pull away and leave, like he always did, but he'll stay put. Even as Jaskier's arm is around him and he can feel him pressed up against his back. He stays and the warmth of another body like this is nice, it always had been.

Just a shame the last person he'd been this comfortable with was his wife and that was a loaded gun of mixed feelings. Even after all this time. And yet, Cooper let's his hand rest over Jaskier's.

"I was."

When Cooper places his hand over Jaskier's any lingering tension drains away from him, that slight readiness to move away if this was something Cooper adamantly didn't want. Even if it's something Jaskier loves, something he gives freely to most anyone, he knows the weight of acceptance of it for Cooper. Maybe it's just to make Jaskier feel better, but he hopes that Cooper lets himself enjoy it, too.

He's one of those people that is so used to the hard way that he forgets there's any other option sometimes, in Jaskier's opinion. That there can still be kindness and good in the world.

"There's places rebuilding - with sky and green and good water. Could go there, when you find her."

When, not if.

It's not even that he doesn't believe there's no kindness or good in the world, just that the world is too cruel to let any of that last long. The wasteland rarely gives, it just takes.

When you find her. It's the reason he keeps living at this point. Many would think he's mad, staying alive for over 200 years, looking for his daughter. It's not like the wicked parts of his mind don't whisper to him how she's probably passed long ago, but other parts insist she has to still be alive. Even now. Locked away in some vault, on ice just waiting for him to find her. Take her away from those Vault-Tec bastards. Even if they're probably the safer option at this point.

Cooper does glance over his shoulder at Jaskier.

"Last place like that was turned into a crater." Cooper don't be such a Debbie Downer. Many other places similarly were eventually taken over by raiders or locked down by whatever wannabe government had the biggest dick in the area. The NCR had had Shady Sands before that was blown into a hole in the ground. The Enclave were slinking around still here and there where they could and let's not even get started with the fucking Brotherhood of Steel. Uppity goddamn walking tin cans.

Jaskier hopes she's still alive when Cooper finds her, but -- he's also certain there's no way Cooper will give up until he finds her one way or another. A living daughter. Remains. Proof of her existence. The dedication is admirable. He doesn't think any of his parents would give that much of a shit about him. Hell, he knows they don't.

"Don't be obtuse," he says, meeting Cooper's eyes with a scoff, letting out a sigh and cuddling in closer again. Jaskier adores the comfort of another body against his. "Shady Sands was big. Smaller ones, not on the map. We're social animals, we want to take care of one another. There's more. Some last. I hear about them."

If not for Janey and any hope, any little glimpse that she could be out there. Alive or... dead, he needs to know.

But Cooper fears he's running out of time. He has to take those fucking vials more often and sooner than later they're going to stop working. He'll be one more mindless feral put down like a sick dog.

Cooper rolls his eyes a little at Jaskier, looking away again, but he'll thread their fingers together with a tired sigh.

"Tell me then bout these places, birdie. Think I could use a bedtime story."

While Jaskier gives a grumble at the eye rolling, he's hard pressed to turn down a chance to tell a story even under the worst of circumstances. So he lightly squeezes Cooper's hand with his own and begins his tale, putting together the pieces he remembers from whispers of those passing through.

"Supposed to be one up north, west foothills of the mountains along the west coast. A bunch of former farms tied together. Rain's been clean up there for a while and comes regular," Jaskier begins, voice a gentle murmur near Cooper's ear. He's a natural storyteller, taking the bits of information he's gotten and weaving them together to something that sounds beautiful and real. Of course, Jaskier is also bone tired from so little sleep, so... He ends up putting himself to sleep with it, eventually trailing off mid-sentence as his breathing goes deep and even, pressed up against Cooper's back.

As Jaskier talks he quietly listens, maybe humming a little here and there as if giving input. Soon enough though words trail off and Jaskier is out like a light. Just like he figured. Cooper chuckles tiredly, reaching over to turn the lantern off, engulfing them in complete darkness. Better to not waste that.

It won't take him long to join him, the crackle and thunder of the storm getting further and further away from them a weird sound to lull him into sleep.

And if at some point he shifts in his slumber to face Jaskier, no he doesn't. And if one of his arms ends up wrapped around him, no it didn't!

Covered in blood

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