ACQUAINTED | MEETING 8/12

[shizuknya]

[align=center][div style="background=transparent; bordercolor=transparent; text-align: justify; width: 435px; font-size: 8pt; color: #808080; line-height: 130%; font-family: arial; text-transform: lowercase; letter-spacing: 1.5px;"]since the stepping down of bane and the position of lord was passed onto him ( as well as his wife ) he only found it proper that he hold a meeting. was he nervous? yes. it's been a while, but still, he was unsure. he had a leadership bone in his body, he was aware of this. he found leading to be simple. but there were times where he doubted himself - the voices doubting his abilities to be the good guy for once. marrying carter was the start to bettering himself and being a better person. to leave the violent past behind him, to throw away whatever grudges he may have even if the physical scars may last with him forever. he needed to be the bigger person and step up to the plate, not letting his emotions control his actions as lord and jeopardize his people.

josiah stood in the center of the hotel lobby, arms crossed over his chest and an almost emotionless expression on his face. emotion was not a strong suit of his, unless you were someone near and dear to him. his right hand scratched at the forearm of his left uneasily, teeth nipping at the insides of his cheeks.

❝ everyone gather around for a meeting! ❞ he called out.

[eliza]

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leadership, the very thought of it, made a bile form in the back of her throat. it was a plague in her family, a curse. you put a greene in charge, and the whole goddamn castle crumbles to the ground. they were lit matches in a dehydrated forest, a wounded swimmer in sharks territory, a herd of bulls in a china shop. they were dangerous, every one of them in their own right. her father disobeyed direct orders in an attempt to do the right thing. her mother valued those orders too deeply to save her husband's life. her sister solved every issue with the wrong end of her fist.

and carter? where carter went, shallow graves and too many bodies to count followed. she felt like a horseman of the apocalypse, the harbinger of death. she'd never even needed to be in charge for it to happen, she didn't need to be told to do the things she'd done. she'd simply done them, understanding the cost and the reward, understanding the weight of every decision she'd ever made. carter acted with the thoughts of the many in her mind, she tried to do the right thing, but it seemed as though her life was one impossible choice after another. time and time again, she did the difficult thing so others didn't have to. she bled and she ached and she burned at the stake so they didn't have to.

and in the end, she'd been left alone. fifteen years old, a child abandoned with nothing, with no one. exiled at her own mothers command, and exile had been the decision of pity. she wasn't the one who should have gone, at least not alone, but she took credit for the sins of her family because someone had to, and who better than the blue-eyed martyr everyone had already designated the villain?

she accepted that with ease. she'd trained her eyes forward, kept her chin up, and walked away from the only world she'd ever remembered, into the expanse of nothingness beyond. odds of survival weren't good, but she'd done it. she'd found a boy with dark eyes and a bleeding wound, and she'd told herself that maybe, just maybe, she could save him. and if she did that, maybe he could save her. all the things she'd done in her life, maybe he could keep her from a cold little corner of hell. and if you asked her, she'd say he had saved her. not in any one instance, no moment of playing knight-in-shining-armor, but in the small moments. he kept her going, kept her breathing, kept her standing. when she had days where she couldn't look herself in the mirror, he was a steady hand to guide her. in turn, she kept him from being stupid, kept him from getting himself killed. he'd been her best friend for a decade, and then he'd been more. as of even more recently, he'd gotten himself a wedding ring and a shiny new title to match it; husband.

if any of them knew a thing about carter, they'd understand that she was nervous. anxious. terrified. she didn't want more lives on her hands, and yet when josiah had offered her to stand beside him, she'd said yes without hesitation. it wasn't a desire for power, for respect; rather, it was a desire to prove to herself that she wasn't her mother, nor her father. she wasn't blindly loyal to an idea, to a definition of right. she didn't need to lead an army of priests to be a good person, and she didn't need an army of killers to be bad. she was firmly somewhere in the middle, somewhere comfortable and familiar.

she accepted this with ease. she'd trained her eyes forward, kept her chin up, and walked away from the comfort of insignificance, moving through the room with ease as she moved closer to her husband. golden curls framing an ivory face, shiny ring on her left hand, blue eyes saying nothing, she looked like the picture of sainthood, though she was anything but. if any of them knew a thing about carter, they'd understand that she was on the edge of her seat, waiting for something to go wrong. luckily, conveniently, none of them did. the only one who knew the blonde was the man she stopped beside, arms crossing and eyes shifting to his face, taking comfort in the familiar lines and slopes of the man she knew better than herself sometimes. her eyes rested on him, silently informing him that this would be his stead, not hers.

[CAUSTIC]

[align=center][div style="width:500px;font-size:9.2pt; text-align:justify"]Someone somewhere was pissing on all of them. This? This was what they had to fill Bane's shadow? There was a laugh deep in his belly that wanted to roll out as a snarl, and instead it wound its way into the muscles of his hands, which closed down tight over imagined throats, thumbs tucked dangerously into pictured jugulars. He and V hadn't shacked up here to play hand-holders for biddies; this wasn't a place for some kind of fucking redemption. This wasn't a place to sit around a campfire with their scary ghost story pasts at their backs and kumba-fucking-ya on their mouths. The knife at his hip called to his fingers, and goddamn if he wasn't tempted.

All the time he'd spent walking these streets, heading out into the middle of fucking nowhere for a peace offering Flintlock hadn't even deserved, only to get saddled with- what, two jackasses playing hookey with their trepidation-packed baggage so obviously dragged behind? Bane had his issues. But Bane had earned where he stood, and the only way this man could belong in that spot was bleeding into it on the floor. Leave a nice stain somebody else could step on.

Anybody else. He'd take one of the fucking dogs- 'least it wouldn't sit there like a constipated gnome with too much sentience and not enough know-how.

"Well, that's fucking adorable. This gonna be a li'l honeymoon resort now?" He laughed unkindly, smile all teeth and razored eyes. "Kinda hurt Bane didn't let us know what kinda shitshow was rolling up the street- woulda left with him, saved myself the trouble." Caustic turned slightly toward V at his left, one of his hands landing firmly on the back of his neck.

"Think we oughta skip this ghost town. Leave it standing." His gaze followed the line of Volatile's jaw. "Owe that much to him. Takin' a pooch though." His hand left his neck to clap his shoulder, a bit rougher than it should have been. Needed the pressure under his palm to keep from finding it somewhere else, but it was still beckoning to him. No ignoring it.

Caustic turned without sparing the pair another glance, and he didn't need to look to know Volatile was keeping pace.

[shizuknya]

[align=center][div style="background=transparent; bordercolor=transparent; text-align: justify; width: 435px; font-size: 8pt; color: #808080; line-height: 130%; font-family: arial; text-transform: lowercase; letter-spacing: 1.5px;"]he was fully aware of what people’s stances would be on him taking over. he was also aware what they would think since he asked his own wife to lead beside him. there was no bias in his decision; he knew of carter’s capabilities as leader and trusted her to help him lead los santos well. there were a few candidates but not many were around enough and he wasn’t sure if he could afford the missing time.

he turned his head to nod at carter to acknowledge her presence beside him and turned back to the small crowd. his nose scrunched up listening to caustic speak. as much as he wanted to shoot back, he remained cool and collected as a lord should be. if he didn’t want to give josiah and carter a shot and leave, that was fine with him. ❝ first off, i know since the stepping down of bane, everyone’s been unsure of my stepping up. he was a good man and a good leader and i know it will be tough to fill in his shoes, but i’m going to try to be the best lord i can be. with carter by my side, things should go as smoothly as ever, ❞ he said, addressing the loss and caustic’s words. a small smile rugged at the corners of his lips and he continued.

❝ secondly, i’d like to take this chance to announce we will be having s/hp tryouts. i’d like to see some people on our team to help, so keep an eye out for that. lastly, we are going to start up weekly tasks again. we need the activity and the help. carter will start that off. ❞ he smoothly went through the announcements, finger nails picking restlessly at his arm.

❝ alright. meeting dismissed. ❞


OVERVIEW
- josiah hopes to be able to fill bane’s shoes as best as he can
- there will be s/hp tryouts some time this week and you will have time to fill those out before the next meeting. edit: weekly tasks
- we will host another weekly tasks thread so we can get activity popping again. s/hp tryouts

[ABD AL-MALIK]

[align=center][div style="width: 530px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: .3px; line-height: 1.3; padding: 4px;"]Abd al-Malik was loathe to say he wholeheartedly agreed with either of the toxic twins, but Caustic's words weren't far wrong. In leaving, Wolfsbane had left a huge void to fill, and the people of Los Santos weren't merciful. They toyed with morality— with mortality— and keeping them in check wasn't easy. He knew that. Bane had known it. Nevertheless, he couldn't help but feel that something had impaired their former boss' judgement in making this decision.

He wasn't a violent soul, had never revelled in what Los Santos had done— had been capable of doing— under Bane. Impulsive, murderous bastards at worse, and plain anarchical at best — Abd al-Malik was a man who appreciated the illusion of routine, and the chaos of this place was far from ideal. But he didn't disagree with Caustic (and that was the scary part, really, more than anything else)— you came to Los Santos knowing of its violent nature, seeing its rough edges and loving it anyway. To some degree, there had to be acceptance, and Abd al-Malik was no different. He didn't want to judge books by their covers, but there was something distinctly not-Bane about these new leaders. The man reeked of "running from a bad past" (and he knew what that was like, was doing it himself, in part), but in the vow-to-goodness sense, all hope and optimism and virtue. The woman...

Something suggested that Los Santos was on the verge of losing its hard parts. And it wasn't that he was complaining because he liked the callousness, but because the callousness was what made Los Santos itself, and to take that away undermined everything the group had seemingly stood for (or stood against, more accurately).

Maybe he'd be surprised. Maybe Caustic would be surprised, if he stuck around to see these guys through. Abd al-Malik couldn't say he envied them, couldn't say he wished it was him (he didn't — he'd had his taste of authority years ago and decided it wasn't... well. He'd do it, always, but that didn't make those first months fun), but he'd trusted Bane, and he'd never seen these two before, so one could forgive him for being wary, for having his doubts. Just until he was proved wrong. (Or until he wasn't. He couldn't really say.)

He tried to stifle his snicker at Caustic's open irritation, plucking at the seam on his jeans. For Josiah's sake, he stuck around — he wasn't an asshole, wasn't chaotic enough to throw aside common courtesy — but the more he heard, the more he wondered how their new leaders were going to handle... everything. "Smooth isn't..." he smiles, gestures vaguely with one hand. "How it— goes around here. If you need something, let me know." (Whether that was weeding the graveyard again or trying to stop an assassination attempt was to be seen.)

[VOLATILE]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: calibri; font-size: 9.2pt; line-height: 1.4;"]If he's bein' honest, Bane's the only part about this place that kept Volatile sane. Caustic doesn't fucking count, the guy's been with him for longer than this hellhole of a town. It's not quite about trust, but he trusts Caustic and he trusted Bane — can't help but feel a bit betrayed but all of it. Fucker had the audacity to fuck off without saying a word to them. He'd spent too fucking long tryna lead this place when nobody gave a shit, and what? He just leaves and puts these two lovebirds in charge? This whole town should be torn apart for it. His fingers keep twitching as he listens to Josiah, clenching down on his weapon and feelin' hot all over. Angry. That's nothing new, he's always so damn pissy, but this is a rage he hasn't felt yet at Los Santos. Golden eyes are hot on those two faces, burning up like he wants to burn down this town. Maybe he's just not the kinda guy to take orders from a stranger. Fill Bane's shoes? Bullshit. Nobody fucking could.

V leaves most of the words to Caustic. Not much else to say when he agrees with all of it, except for some urge to argue. Leave it standing? He gets it. Bane deserves that much. He sure doesn't want to offer him anything. That hand on his neck is the only thing keeping him where he is, focus distilled down to that point of pressure on his skin instead of all the anger everywhere else.

"Only fair thing for him'd be to tear it down," he mumbles for Caustic to hear, though he reluctantly accepts that Bane deserved better than all his shit. His teeth still clench hard enough that they creak and his fingernails dig bloody grooves into his palms. There's a promise of an outlet in the sharp snap of C's hand on his skin. He calms down. Volatile spits in the dirt and turns to follow, casting a final glance to Malik. He'd been alright. More'n the rest of them, anyway.

"I don't want a fucking dog, asshole."