Tag Archives: open rp

Summer slouched over the bar, turning her cup in one hand. It was mostly empty (the cup, not the bar), and looked like it hadn’t been refilled in some time. She lifted a hand to ward off the bartender who came over to offer a refill, in fact, and blew out a breath.

Given the effect it had on her abilities, drinking wasn’t much of a solace. But she wanted, very badly, to be so drunk she couldn’t stand, if it would stop her thinking. If it would stop the way her mind spun and twisted every time she closed her eyes and tried to sleep. She hadn’t rested, slept, in two days, and the strain told in the way her shoulders hunched up around her ears when someone else took the seat beside her.

“Oh,” she said, “it’s you.”

Jaime Hardee pelted through Beacon Hills Preserve, continually risking glances over his shoulder. In between ‘44 is too old for this’ and ‘I’m too young to die’, he tried to figure out if he was being chased for some personal reason or just because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was just starting down the list of people he might have offended, throwing another glance over his shoulder, when his time ran out.

~~~

Summer Rainault crouched by the side of the massive stump, sleeves shoved up her arms. The wind blew a strand of red hair into her face, and absently she stripped it back behind one ear. The body was laid across the wood in a way that was clearly deliberate, the wide-legged ‘Vitruvian Man’ pose, eerily reminiscent of crucifixion.

She swallowed hard, trying to breathe carefully. It wasn’t the scent — there was very little of that — so much as the lingering aura of absolute terror. She pulled the camera from its slung position behind her back and focused in on the slit wrists — cuts that were utterly clean of blood, yet ran nearly the length of the forearm. She had to steel herself for a long minute before she could snap any shots of the face.

The man’s face was seamed with wrinkles, the skin age-soft and hair nearly pure white. Every visible joint was knobby with arthritis. Except for the cuts, and the positioning of the body, he could easily have died of old age.

“I don’t think you did,” she muttered to the body. “Something killed you. What was it?”

Jaime Hardee pelted through Beacon Hills Preserve, continually risking glances over his shoulder. In between ‘44 is too old for this’ and ‘I’m too young to die’, he tried to figure out if he was being chased for some personal reason or just because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was just starting down the list of people he might have offended, throwing another glance over his shoulder, when his time ran out.

~~~

Summer Rainault crouched by the side of the massive stump, sleeves shoved up her arms. The wind blew a strand of red hair into her face, and absently she stripped it back behind one ear. The body was laid across the wood in a way that was clearly deliberate, the wide-legged ‘Vitruvian Man’ pose, eerily reminiscent of crucifixion.

She swallowed hard, trying to breathe carefully. It wasn’t the scent — there was very little of that — so much as the lingering aura of absolute terror. She pulled the camera from its slung position behind her back and focused in on the slit wrists — cuts that were utterly clean of blood, yet ran nearly the length of the forearm. She had to steel herself for a long minute before she could snap any shots of the face.

The man’s face was seamed with wrinkles, the skin age-soft and hair nearly pure white. Every visible joint was knobby with arthritis. Except for the cuts, and the positioning of the body, he could easily have died of old age.

“I don’t think you did,” she muttered to the body. “Something killed you. What was it?”

Summer wandered casually around SHIELD headquarters. Well, sort of casually. Pretend casually. She was supposed to be sort of informally checking in on Coulson’s new team, see how they were shaking down, how Fitzsimmons was taking to being in the field (and not incidentally combat), how Ward was handling the whole being part of a team thing, stuff like that. Of course, in order to do that, she had to /find/ one of them.

Preferably away from the others. It would get a bit complicated sorting out responses if they were all together. Not that she couldn’t, but the report would be clearer in the end if she tackled each one separately.

And there was one of them now. Summer quietly maneuvered herself over and said, “Hey there.”

The walls of Camelot weren’t very high. Not for what she was planning. She stood on the tallest tower, looking down, and it didn’t seem nearly far enough.

But no one would care. No one would even notice.

She took a deep breath, and climbed up on the edge, ready to jump.