khaleesock (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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bakerstreet2019-05-03 09:37 pm
khaleesock) wrote in bakerstreet2019-05-03 09:37 pm
Entry tags:
the rescue meme.
→ Post with your character’s name, canon, and any preferences in the subject line
→ Those tagging, go to RNG and roll for a number between one and ten.
→ Alternatively, just pick the choice you’re interested in most.
1. BAD DATE - You get a text, a phone call, or maybe you can just see the other person floundering on what clearly must be the worst date of their life. Time to step in and save the day.
2. PRISON - Maybe they've been wrongly convicted, or maybe you're an accomplice. Either way, it's jailbreak time. Maybe the guards will fall for the old 'wounded prisoner' technique.
3. TAKEN HOSTAGE - They're being held at gunpoint, either for money or for fun. Maybe you can talk down their captors — or maybe you are a captor, secretly working to help them.
4. UNWELL - Your body is damaged, your suffering taken its toll. You can't save yourself anymore. You're wounded, you're starving, maybe even dying. Someone, help!
5. YOURSELF - One bad choice after another, your self-destructive tendencies are going to get the best of you unless someone steps in to save the day.
6. BIG DAMN RESCUE - You're hovering over an active volcano, a pit of sharks, about to fall off a cliff. Whatever it is, you've only got precious seconds of life left.
7. LONELINESS - You've been secluded, locked away, and the emptiness is overwhelming. You need company, or you might just drown.
8. UNWANTED SOCIAL FUNCTION - A family reunion, your three o'clock board meeting, whatever it is, you desperately don't want to go. Hopefully your good buddy can come up with a distraction.
9. BAD ROMANCE - You're trapped in a relationship that's headed south. Maybe it's an arranged marriage, or maybe it's just someone who won't take no for an answer. You need a helping hand, maybe even a Prince(ss) Charming.
10. WILDCARD - Any kind of rescue will do! Spread your creative wings and go for it.
no subject
sorry for the delay, went for big damn rescue - let me know if this works
There was just one issue.
She really liked working alone. She wasn't the type to go into anything with back-up unless it was something massive. Her little outing was only supposed to be a quick recovery trip. She'd caught a whisper about the chance of there being supplies in an old hideout of another smuggler long since dead. She'd at least done her due diligence by giving Joel a heads up of where she was going in the form of a note on his counter. The area she was heading to had long since been overrun, but she wasn't new to this. If she could get those supplies, it could mean a big pay day.
She just needed to not die.
Easier said than done, apparently. She'd somehow let herself get pinned down by a few more clickers than she'd planned for. Already bloody shiv in hand, she lays low and waits - trying to pick them off one by one without triggering getting swarmed.
This is just going so fucking great. ]
no problem!
The evening's constant mantra repeats itself again in his head, as Joel ducks under another collapsed chunk of roof. He practically has to crawl to fit through the narrow, slanted gap beneath it, scraping away swaths of wet, green moss as he goes. He takes a few cursory swipes at his already filthy arms once he's out, before stopping to listen.
Where the hell are you?
The one saving grace of her choice of old hideouts to raid is the fact that this one's been abandoned for so long - it's easy to track the few traces of recent movement, no matter how careful she was, coming through ahead of him. But the fact remains that she was careful, and he's already met two dead ends looking for her.
To say nothing of all the other obstacles he's stumbled over, most of them ready and eager to rip his throat out, given half the chance. And the going sure as hell isn't getting any easier; already he can hear the telltale chattering of clickers echoing off the walls. No less than five or six, at least, he figures, and something sure sounds like it's got them riled up. Or maybe that's just his imagination. Maybe it's just the other thought that keeps coming back to him as he creeps along through the shadows, keeping low: a particularly vivid picture of Tess lying in a pool of her own blood, maybe bit, maybe just run afoul of some rusty old tripwire. Like it matters. In his mind's eye, she twitches feebly a few more times, and then he hears it, that too familiar sound. The one they all make before they stop flopping and thrashing around.
Cut it out. Just get a damn handle on it and cut that shit right out. It ain't helping.
The roof's not the only thing that's fallen in. Up ahead, the floor dips and then breaks off entirely, an enormous sinkhole open to the basement below. He can tell that's where the clickers are all clustered together even before he sidles up to the edge to look down. Watching the lot of them twitch and stagger around in their perpetual blind furor, his guess wasn't off by much - barring the one still, hunched over shadow in the corner.
Runner, he thinks, first - until the pale moonlight filtering dimly through the busted-in skylight shifts (or maybe she does), and the recognition hits him hard enough to almost feel like relief. Not dead yet.
Back to the wall, Joel settles onto a knee and covers his flashlight with a hand - just enough to dim the light when he switches it on, then off again, trying to catch her eye. Any sudden sound or wrong move down here, and they're both going to regret it. Who knows how many more of those fucking things are lurking around? ]
no subject
Or death via a quick sacrifice.
She didn't get this far by being the bigger person in the grand scheme of things. She did what she needed to do to survive and the less strings attached to it, the better. She wasn't a stranger to loss - none of them were. She couldn't let it get to her, though. At least, that had been the idea when she'd been squaring herself up to face off with the clickers alone before her eyes caught the flash of the light.
And it's her turn for a Goddammit Joel mantra of her own. When she'd left that note, it had been as a courtesy to not expect her back until at least tomorrow, not an invitation.
She lets her eyes rest on Joel's form, debating for a long moment if it was worth getting over to him or staying in her spot. Given how beat up this place already was, all it would take is one awful creak of the floor beneath her feet or something snapping and those clickers would swarm.
Moving slowly and silently, she stays low and as covered as she can - trying to get to the piece of brick on the ground nearby. Throwing it the opposite direction in the sinkhole might buy them enough time to at least get closer to each other. As mad as she may be that he followed her here, they did work well together and there wasn't anyone she'd trust at her back more. On a somewhat lighter note, at least the fact that this place was still so overrun and undisturbed was a good sign for what was all still left in here. The payout would be worth it if they survived this place.
She just had to keep reminding herself of that and to keep her focus. No reason to rush through this when she'd already made it so far. Besides, what was the point of letting Joel or herself die after he'd followed her here when she wanted to kill him herself when this was all done.
Tess cautiously chooses each and every piece of floor she puts pressure on and the placement of her hands - the actions old hat at this point in her life. She doesn't let her guard down, though, her entire body going rigid when the floor feels even the slightest bit weaker beneath her and then it becomes a delicate game of balance and shifting. It takes a moment, but she's able to re-center herself - finding enough purchase on the wall to adjust and avoid the potential fuck up to the plan. Alright, maybe going for the brick wasn't the best plan of attack.
Shit. ]
no subject
Not to mention whatever else is down here rushing in to join the fray. With this many entrenched infected, Joel's not putting his money on this small pack being the extent of it, either.
His ever-present glower darkens as he watches her almost-fumble, and he holds up a hand - aware that she's as likely to give him the silent fuck off and keep going as she is to heed the gesture. There's gotta be something easier to reach up where he is, though, and he starts to move again, regardless, staying low and slow. No amount of careful stepping is going to save him from a creaky board, between the sheer mass of him and his substantially lacking grace. It's pure luck that keeps his retreat silent, even as he backtracks over his own muddy footprints.
There's another collapsed segment of roof not far behind him, not big enough to have broken through the floor, and the rubble strewn around it is spread out enough that picking out a sizable chunk of concrete isn't hard. He sidles back around the hole in the floor with the fist-sized rock in hand, grimacing as he listens intently to the grating chittering from below, eyes darting around for some glimpse of Tess in the dark. ]
sorry for delay - swarm of clickers or should they just have to maybe fight their way out?
That's the mindset she has to get into and stay in. Be as careful as she can manage and be ready to sacrifice the quiet if she fucks up. It's not like she won't fight to survive, but taking some of the pressure off keeps her mind quiet - lets her focus like a hawk. On the flipside of that perspective, there's the Joel might try and drag her out of here... But it'll still not be her problem anymore after that. Overthinking everything will get her killed. And that's exactly what she'd been doing since she noticed Joel. She'd intended to set out on this alone and his arrival was one hell of a distraction.
She sees him hold up a hand and fights the urge to return a gesture of her own. Being an ass wasn't how she was going to die today. Instead she focuses, just remembering one wrong step and none of this will matter anymore. Tess can only hope Joel has enough time to get away. It takes some effort and more time than she liked to get near Joel, years of experience taking over when she manages to tell her brain to shut up for a second. She and Joel can fight about this later, maybe... Once her heart is at least out of her throat. None of this seemed so worth it anymore, putting her in a position that she might be willing to silently negotiate a retreat. Maybe.
Tess doesn't get right up next to him, not really wanting to test her luck further. Nothing had crumbled under her feet so far, but she wasn't really sure it would survive another trip across - especially with added weight. There were still also enough clickers and whatever the hell else was down there to make things unpleasant. ]