InsaneJournal

TWWD, again
Snips of the pants-dropping kind. Perfectly worksafe, I promise.



Ivan ran his hands over the shotgun, fingers running through a series of checks almost unconsciously. The tourist map - their path marked out in thick, spattered ink from a leaky pen he had found in his back pocket - was folded up and stuck down the front of his jeans, and it crackled every time he moved. Absently, he hitched his jeans back up, as the weight of the bullets and knick-knacks in his pockets were on the verge of dragging them down.

"Ready to go yet?" The woman - Sorelia, his mind supplied - shouldered the bag and shifted its bulk around to her right side. She looked a little sickly in the greenish light, but her expression was determined.

If not a little stubborn.

"Yes," he said, checking the shotgun one last time before settling it in the crook of his arm and rising from the dusty desk.

Their footfalls scraped loud against the solid concrete floor, seeming somehow heavier going down the stairs than they had been going up, and Ivan halted when they reached the door. He raised his right hand and flattened it against the door, feeling the paint flaking off the steel beneath his palm. Faint, like echoes, he could feel the thrum of water going through the pipes, reverberating through the door and into his fingertips.

"Can you hear anything?" Sorelia asked.

".... No." Of course, that doesn't mean the street is empty. "When we go out there.... keep up."

"Don't worry!" she said and clapped a hand on his shoulder, startling him. "I can run just as fast as you can, even when I'm toting the bag. Those slobbering hell-beasts don't have a chance of catching up."

This girl.... Sorelia smiled with her eyes closed, and Ivan sighed through his nose and reached for the deadbolt. ... is so recklessly brave it's stupid.