Bounty Hunter who hopes the CCTV caught them catching you — it was sick as hell, dude

Written to the prompt by Make Up A Criminal — Bounty Hunter who hopes the CCTV caught them catching you — it was sick as hell, dude

Originally posted on cohost on April 3rd, 2024.

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Chambers slammed the door of the retrofitted cargo van behind them after stomping their big fuck-off boots on the thick rubber mat of the floor. The whole van lurched with each bootfall.

The door slam made Auzel—wrists cuffed and waist strapped to a bench running the length of the cargo portion of the cargo van—flinch away from the glimpse of the alley behind his complete mistake of a decision to secure funds before vacating the east coast for maybe forever. Now he knew it should have been forever, if he had made it. He was feeling pretty sore—physically and emotionally—about the whole situation.

“Yo! I got it.” Chambers’ speaking voice was a hearty chest rumbling shout. So was their laugh.

Every ear splitting sound out of Chambers was a spike driving into Auzel’s headache. He squinted up through a wince at Chambers’ beaming shit-eating grin that was waiting for something. He huffed a sigh—he had been huffing his breaths when he wasn’t carefully sucking in air and wheezing exhales, he was pretty sure he had a fractured rib—and relented, “Got what?”

Chambers absolutely howled “HA HAAA” and threw themself against the space on the bench next to Auzel. For a second, Auzel thought the van was going to tip over on its side, then Auzel was struggling to focus his eyes on the tablet thrust in front of him. He recognized the tablet as made in the same backyard manufacturer halfway across the continent that Auzel got his gear from. That was... frustrating.

“Okay, check this out, I got multiple angles.”

When Auzel recognized the telltale server space saving quality of the video as security camera feed he wheezed, “I’ve been waiting here for you to get security footage?” Entirely unnecessary. Auzel had thought Chambers was doing some sort of psychological thing by making him wait for so long. In a way, they had been and were currently.

Then Auzel watched what was definitely not him doing crimes and what was definitely him absolutely eating shit in the most spectacular fashion. Chambers, out of frame from this angle, hadn’t even done anything. Auzel had taken a corner too sharp and clipped some atrocious corporate art installation, continued to run with increasingly failing balance until finally toppling over to fall down a giant brutalist concrete step, do a boardslide on the actual human steps’ handrail with his actual human torso—this is probably where the probable fractured rib occurred—and tumble into Chambers’ arms that appeared at the last possible second.

Auzel pressed his eyes shut tight from the psychic damage and the screen exacerbating his headache.

“No, no, man, you gotta check this out.” Chambers held up another camera’s view and waited until Auzel peeked an eye open before hitting play.

This angle didn’t show him running but it showed his fall, his cracking a rib on the handrail instead of his skull on concrete, and—most importantly to Chambers’ glee—Chambers doing a roll out of a vault over another rail so as to put their momentum into leaning their upper body forward just enough to catch Auzel in time and somehow not fall over.

Auzel didn’t bother justifying his absolutely mortified groan with any of the many physical pains he was currently suffering.

“Okay, okay, totally sick, right? But then...”

The third video showed Chambers, running full speed like a boulder down a sheer mountainside, change tack when Auzel clipped the atrocious corporate art installation. They dive forward at the wood-on-concrete benches at the top of the steps that surely weren’t comfortable enough for anyone to sit on, plant their hands to push themself past the bench and then drop multiple giant brutalist steps before the whole rail vault and roll into catching Auzel’s sorry ass.

Chambers is howling with laughter right next to Auzel’s headache. They slam an arm across Auzel’s shoulder when they notice him curling away from them. “Fucking magical. Magnificent. I’m putting this on my reel.”

Auzel didn’t want to know if Chambers meant a parkour reel or a “check how good I am at catching bounties” reel. He was busy trying not to pass out from the pain from his ribcage with Chambers’ heavy arm on him shaking with laughter. When it lifts, he sucks in as much air as he can stand and feels the tingling sensation of passing out subside just a little.

Meanwhile, Chambers pockets the tablet in their of course black cargo pants and wipes tears of laughter from their eyes. “Ahhh,” they crow, stretching their legs out to the opposing bench and crossing their ankles, the van bounces accordingly. “Good times.” When they lift their arms to thread their hands behind their head, Auzel flinches and they pretend not to notice. “So, Auzel. Is that like blue? You can call me Shame.”

Auzel is regretting not passing out a moment ago. He purses his lips and tries to wait out Chambers—Shame. Several minutes later, when it’s evident Shame is in no rush and will sit there until they get a response, Auzel mutters, “No, it’s like bird.”

“What?”

Grimacing at another spike in his headache, Auzel repeats himself.

Shame drops their feet from the bench with a slam to the thick rubber mat floor that Auzel is starting to think is the only thing keeping Shame from punching their boots through the van’s body, the van bounces accordingly. They somehow get closer to Auzel while getting up, and head for the front of the van. “Alrighty then, let’s get going, little bird.”

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You really, really hope Sheppard doesn't have to come into town for the next week.

Sometimes The Mountain Buries You is a queer novella about the monster that threatens your attempt at a much-needed quiet life. Check out the about page here.

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You really, really hope Sheppard doesn't have to come into town for the next week. He doesn't. But Murre is very, very useful and you find yourself hoping Sheppard doesn't have to come into town for the next couple of weeks—though Murre is in town only about half of the time. They're on lamb watch the other half.

But then the ranches start filling with the usual hands and you find Sheppard on an examination table again. There's quite the gouge out of his side.

"Did you fall off a cliff?" you exclaim.

He smiles. "How'd you guess?"

You purse your lips and take deliberate breaths before attending the infuriating patient. It takes some effort not to just shove him down on the table when he hesitates to lie on his non-gouged side as you instruct. "Did you break a rib?" "Fracture maybe?"

You exhale your whole self. When you come back, you're bent over, elbows on knees and hands on temples. Across the room, you can feel Sheppard's uncertainty in getting up to comfort you. Part of you wonders if he spent the last two weeks at the bottom of the cliff, another part screams at him not to tell you. He does his best to collect himself into a posture that bothers you the least.

You're done picking spines out of his side and just starting regular wound treatment when it occurs to you that this is about the best timing to ask him.

"I don't want to get to know more people. I've tried that."

"Was that the bar fight?" Your voice is clinical, focused on providing excellent medical care.

"One of several attempts from only the latest time someone," Dr. Lacey, "had convinced me into it. I don't want to know more people."

There would be something to say about isolation and social needs but Sheppard had always—previously—only come to you for medical aid, spending weeks at a time without seeing or hearing even the most distant human. He's also spent unknown years alone, albeit long ago, stitching himself back together. You don't know what, if any, physiological affects of isolation or socializing Sheppard may experience.

"You already know them?" Your voice shapes a question mark, a proposal. And, from your initial meeting and the vague impressions when they don't say a words about Sheppard, they already know basic Sheppard information—equally a point in disfavour—and the things you increasingly have to acknowledge are in these woods. You never asked Sheppard about the fire that gave off no heat and burned only what it was fed. You've never seen Sheppard do anything alike before or since. But now you've helped with the things in the wood that tear Sheppard apart enough he has you stitch him back together. And but you've come face to face with It.

When you blink your eyes into focus, you're holding a wash bottle of sterile water in one hand and a needle driver in the other. Sheppard appears to have worked through the medley of emotions about who you were planning to introduce them to. He mostly looks worried about you. "Sorry, it's all very— I didn't move here for interpersonal," you gesture with the needle driver that you put down to finish preparing Sheppard's side. "And then It."

You have a little notebook—not the one Dr. Lacey left you—in which you've started tracking time losses like these, how long, where, when, what you were thinking. It's all been stress, been little moments of dissociation. You feel silly for writing it all out, for how obviously something terrifying happened and your body is having a natural response that you already know and have experienced well enough.

Sheppard doesn't know what all It could do to a person, so he doesn't assure you that you're right about it just being dissociation within expectations or look worried that this maybe something more. He lies there on mostly his back while watching your face the way he looks out across the horizon. "What's their name?" When you tell him, he says, "like the bird."

After stitches and dressing, you sit together with tea on the clinic's back step in the growing dark. You've explained Murre's return and their helping you, the space and need running out for them at the ranches. Sheppard is cautious and hesitant but he nods a lot. You tell him about how you're going to offer crashing at yours "just until picking starts", but that means Sheppard likely seeing them again. "Is that like, a concern?" Outside of the usual 'don't trust anyone not to stab Sheppard'.

"I uh," he looks at the bottom of his empty mug. It was made by a friend of the ceramicist who stayed in town the other year, the glaze is unintentionally drippy. "I mean, if they needed help with the fire—wait, no." He hums. "I'll keep my guard up and also," he raises his eyebrows and looks above yours, then clears his throat, "Two promises. One, they don't ask me for anything else."

"Ahuh."

You wait.

Sheppard's eyes look past you. You look for any alarm or freeze response, then you look for the dissociation you've been struggling with. "Two?"

"I honestly don't know how to put it into words." He slides an arm across your back and you slip yours around his shoulders. He smiles. "But I would prefer you remain my sole medical provider."

You laugh, he leans into the shake of your ribcage.

[the joke is he wants you to be the only person inside him/he doesn't want anyone but you inside him, but also he sincerely doesn't want to kill someone by them trying to help him]

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