they saw trouble in my eyes – joining

[TAKANASHI]

[align=center][div style="width: 400pt; text-align: justify; font-size:9pt; line-height:1.7"]//i'm a little rusty so if there's anything awkward have mercy on me
warning for mentions of death and mild violence (no vivid details)

Every time he pulls the trigger is like an apology. They're shitty excuses for apologies, but his lips move wordlessly around what is either that or a prayer, and Joseph isn't devout. It's hard to believe in a god when a family of five dies for no reason at all, sans the good for nothing second son. He can shoot, though. He sees their faces in the cooling red spray after the bullet leaves the chamber, and Joseph knows killing their murderers won't bring them peace or comfort. It doesn't bring him serenity either. There is the eerie calm before he squeezes his finger on the rifle, but afterward he's a little more hollow, a little more undone. He finds no solace or satisfaction in death because it is death and it will take them all one way or another. If Joseph didn't kill them, sickness might have, or another person whose family they killed. Or they could have died comfortable in a bed at a ripe old age, and he knows he can't find repentance in their deaths, but imagining a peaceful death for them puts some vigor in his muscles. He doesn't feel the cold anymore, and he holds his breath to steady his hands until the moment is right. It's no different than hunting a buck or one of the mountain lions that would make off with one of the goats sometimes. Same colored blood, same crack of a gun.

Down they go.

Joseph stands from his crouch feeling stiff from what he thinks have been hours of waiting. The snow hasn't helped, but he is done. Seven men broke into the house, seven men left, and now seven men are dead. It has taken him months to find each one, and now he is done. The rifle goes into its carrier and is slipped over his shoulder, and he flexes his gloved hands. He never thought about what he would do when they were all dead, so he stands here amid trees. Joseph pulls down the cloth around his face and his breath immediately starts fogging in the air, and he watches it drift away, wishes he could go with it. Instead he starts walking in a random direction, boots crunching, and he thinks he must look like a spectre. Dressed in white, roaming without signs of stopping.

He doesn't stop. He needs water and should eat some of the jerky in his belt, but he doesn't drink and he doesn't eat. He walks. Numb and detached, he walks.

Joseph finally stops when his legs quiver, and he thinks there's a building but he doesn't care. He goes down to his knees and slides his rifle horizontally into his lap where he steadies it with both hands. His older brother's face is in the flurry of falling snow, and his little sister in the gray-white clouds. There's no fixing this.

[JOSIE]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 1.4;"]/ oh gosh it's a great post, i don't think you have to worry about being rusty alsdkjf

Jo had never really killed a person before. Animals, yes, and there are times when she wonders after the difference between those two, but in the end it's not the same. She killed because she needed food, and once because she knew that the animal would never recover from an injury and couldn't watch it suffer. There are some nights where she finds herself wondering what it would be like to do it — feel someone's blood on her hands, that is — but she can never picture it. Or when she does, it ends up feeling like pig's blood. It's really the same, isn't it? But she imagines using a weapon and it's always the ax they use for cutting wood or her dad's shotgun or her own fists. Her life is a confusing repeat of things that she's already experienced, and although Jo isn't much of a thinker, not too likely to get lost in questions about the future, she knows that she's not prepared for the day that the world kicks her out of routine and tells her to grow up. It'll happen, eventually.

She wonders if that is what this had been for Joseph, if this revenge was somehow sparked by something so damaging that he found himself completely off-kilter. However much he says there's no difference between humans and mountain lions, she thinks that there is. Humans have, at the very least, a sense of morality, and the ability to mourn. Even for perfect strangers, humans would gently close their eyelids and bury them six feet down. Maybe not so much now, with the end of the world as they knew it kicking down on them so harshly, but the blackout didn't seem to affect Jo like it did everyone else. She was still just a person, and she'd never do something like this. Maybe everyone has that thought at least once.

Still, this isn't her time to have it. Despite the meandering prose, Josie is feeling perfectly content today. It's cold, as it always is, but spring is finally approaching with summer on its heels. She can't wait for things to melt, even just a bit. More animals wandering up the mountain, and grass sprouting beneath her feet. For now, there's still a bit of pain about these patrols, but they're worth it. Sometimes she finds one of the dogs running around in the snow and sniffing at these... Shelters, she would assume. They're a smart thing to have, and she's made a few notes in her head about restocking and repairing them. It would have to come later though, especially when she's now confronted by something else entirely. One of the other perks of these patrols: people. The last person she had found sitting in the snow was Ren, and at the time there had been an immediate urge to drag the boy indoors. With this one, she's slightly more wary. Maybe it's because of how relaxed he looks, or contemplative.

She slows her steps so that her boots don't crunch so obviously in the snow before she stops and shifts foot to foot. "Excuse me, are you alright?"

[TAKANASHI]

[align=center][div style="width: 400pt; text-align: justify; font-size:9pt; line-height:1.7"]//oh thank you ^^; it's only downhill from here tho

He had blood on his hands before killing these men. His family's death is on his head just as much as it is on the ones who pulled the triggers. If it weren't for Joseph getting too big for his britches and having a head full of shit ideas they would still be alive right now, but he ran his mouth at the wrong time in the wrong place. He's always been the troublemaker. His older brother is (was) the behaved and perfect example, and his little sister made it look effortless to be good. Their parents called her their tenshi, which is one of the only words in his family's language that he knows. Angel. Warugaki is one of the others, muttered by his older brother whenever Joseph disappointed someone, and it's something like brat. Bad child. He wonders what the word for murderer is, and if any of them thought it before they died. He's glad he won't ever know because the worst part of this is the realization that he can't grovel at his parents for forgiveness this time. Joseph has to live and imagine how they might have blamed him if they were alive, and he wishes they were alive to hate him. Better that than buried in their garden. They should have killed him, too.

Leaving him alive was their mistake and they've paid for it now. Is living Joseph's punishment?

Yeah, sure. People aren't animals. But people can be worse than animals. The mountain lions taking their goats did it to feed their children. The people who killed his parents did it because Joseph beat them in a game and rubbed his victory in their faces. If they had jumped him on his way out instead of following him all the way home, he could have accepted it. He knows the dark corners of humanity. He'd come home after taking a beating in them more nights than he could count. There was no reason to take their hurt pride to his family, but he knows now he went too deep. Playing it safe like his older brother wouldn't have done any harm to anyone. Joseph could kill mountain lions to save their goats, and he could kill men for memories. He knew he was capable of it before he did, because he's always been different. His family is (were) good people and the worst they dished out was disappointment and a scolding. Curse words from his brother.

But Joseph is another story. Always has been. Played too rough as a child, pushed too hard, grew up and spent his free time bloodying noses. Is he proud of it? No. He can't be, but it's too late to be the son they wanted. There isn't a point in trying to atone now when the only people he'd do it for are gone.

Now he's here on his knees waiting for...anything. A freak lightning storm to strike him dead. A few starving wolves taking their next meal. Or nothing at all. Turns out the reality isn't any of the above, but a girl. Woman. Joseph hasn't been around many but some of them didn't mind pitching in with their boyfriends, and a boot to the ribs is a boot to the ribs no matter who it's attached to. He stares at her boots first. They have kicking potential. He looks up slowly after that, mostly because it hurts to move. And he doesn't want to. "Not really." Quiet and honest. A bitter smile on cracked lips. "Nothing you can do. I gotta move or can I keep sitting here?"