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WHO: Frank Castle, Killian Jones, and ota
WHERE: near the inn/the inn
WHEN: the night of the feast
OPEN TO: All!
WARNINGS: Uh. Gore and blood and stuff.
STATUS: Open and ongoing.

After four mutilated animals in as many weeks, Frank isn’t feeling much like celebrating. Word gets around, and the sudden appearance of this morning’s feast does nothing to settle him. They need the food, to be sure, with more hungry mouths coming out of the fountain every day and their winter stores getting no fuller; he doesn’t begrudge those who decide to eat it — but a meal like that appearing out of thin air? Sounds like a trap to him, and somebody’s got to not get caught in it. (If the feast would have turned his thoughts to crayon-colored hand turkeys and cookie crumbs and Frank Jr.’s small, still fingers in the blood-wet grass no matter what the circumstance, Frank doesn’t let his mind linger too long on that. )

Almost as soon as he’d arrived at the inn, Frank had set back out into the cold, bright day, but by the time the sun start to dip he’s swinging back towards it again, black wool coat buttoned up over his overalls, a lamp swinging by his side.

The now-familiar scent of fresh woodsmoke gusts through the air — and beneath it, the coppery bite of blood.

Killian had fewer qualms about enjoying the feast, even though he is still uncomfortable at the thought of someone watching them. Someone toying with them. But like he’d said all those months ago after he and Jo found the weapons (or tools, as some prefer to think of them), it’s also about survival, and the spread of food currently occupying the inn will go a long way towards ensuring their survival for another day. Discovering the presence of alcohol, which he hasn’t had a drop of in months, was another deciding factor in his determination to enjoy the food and worry about its consequences later. (He’s good at dealing with consequences. He’s had a lot of practice at just going with a situation.)

Even though the warm inn, with its smells of food and the smoke from the fire, is exactly the sort of place he used to frequent when he and his crew would put in at some port or another, he finds himself in need of some fresh air to clear his head. He’s been indulging in the rum, and having lost his tolerance due to going without a drop of it for months, it’s gone to his head more than it used to. Plus there is the looming concern about making it through the winter, and even if he’s not in charge here, worrying about the survival of everyone present is a hard habit to break.

He’s a distance from the inn before he stops, reaching for a tree for support. There’s the smell of blood in the air, familiar from his many years of a life at sea, but he thinks nothing of it. There have been so many attacks lately, and the smell ends up clinging to his clothes when he’s been preparing a pile of fresh-caught fish. It’s a smell he’s used to by now.

It’s when he’s reaching for the tree that it happens. His foot connects with something, something that shouldn’t be at the base of a tree. Something he can’t see in the dark. If only he’d thought to bring something with him when he came outside.

“What the hell…?”

At the sound of a voice, Frank squints ahead into the dark, trying to make out the approaching figure. Luckily, it’s someone he’s seen around enough to recognize from a vague outline in the dark. “Everything alright, Captain?”

As Frank lifts his lamp, the light falls across the well-trodden ground toward the tree, and Killian — and the limp arm resting against the ground at his feet. A woman’s, and far too quiet and still out here in the night. Frank lifts the lamp higher.

"Karen," he breathes, as the light hits her pale face. "Karen--" Louder now, Frank’s moving before he's thinking, boots skidding through the dirt as he rushes for her, his lamp hitting the ground hard and his knees harder as he drops down beside her.

She's too still. Too red. At her neck, in her hair, there's so much red, Jesus. Meat is coming out of her abdomen, and on some futile instinct Frank reaches to scoop it back in, like he can just put her stomach back where it belongs and she'll make it. She'll be okay. (She doesn’t look like she’s going to be okay.)

When Killian catches sight of her face, he can tell right away that she’s someone he saw around but not anyone he ever talked to in any way more than passing. He wishes he had, though, if only because he’s sure that she wouldn’t want to be remembered this way by strangers. He reaches out to stop the other man -- he doesn’t have to be a sawbones to know that it’s too late -- but then stops. This is how he’d be reacting if it were Emma beneath the tree, and he’d strike out at anyone who tried to stop him.

“The others need to know.” They’ll probably wonder, for one thing, and now it’s a matter of everyone’s survival. “I’ll keep them from coming out here themselves.” For privacy, and also because even during the course of several lifetimes at sea, he never saw anything like this. The others don’t need these images keeping them from sleeping tonight.

He turns away from the tree and heads back to the inn, allowing time for Frank to speak if he wants, but not expecting it. Killian pauses for a moment outside the door to the inn. He really doesn’t want to be the one to break the festive mood, but there’s no other choice. At least it’s given him a chance to sober up somewhat.

He stops just inside the door and waits until he has everyone’s attention. It takes a moment, because everyone is enjoying themselves, but the grave look on his face and the blood that he’s sure to have picked up from stumbling in the dark should help with that. He makes sure to stay calm when addressing the room -- panic would only cause more panic, and he’s hoping to keep enough of them calm for this not to turn into an even bigger disaster.

“It’s not just animals. Whatever is out there, going after livestock, has come for one of us now.” He pauses a moment to let that sink in. “Her name was Karen.”

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When someone does eventually come out of the inn, Frank hasn’t moved from where he'd landed, kneeling there in the grass next to Karen. Head bowed and breath quick, he cups one hand against her midsection, steady like the ripped-open flesh will knit itself back together if he just holds it in place long enough, gentle like she’ll fall apart again if he isn’t.

As if her throat isn't already gone. As if she isn't already gone.

(He'd been right there-- twenty, fifty feet, he'd smelled smoke and blood-- ~~he'd heard the shot~~-- and he didn't do anything. Not a single thing.)

His eyes are open, dark and shivering in the lamp light, but he's not looking at anyone but her. Her black scrubs top, the one she'd run out to rescue him from a rainstorm in, now soaked with blood. Her pink curls that bounce when she laughs, hanging loose off her dislodged scalp. Her insides cradled in the palm of his hand, barely cool. He doesn't move. Doesn't respond. He just stares -- and waits for the head shot.

(One batch, two batch-- here I come, here I come.)

[ I’d prefer only 1 thread in response to this one (although a free-for-all is fine!), but please feel free to assume Frank has backed off for purposes of later threads, or come talk to Frank slightly after this moment, as he won't be going far from Karen's body until her remains are taken care of. ]

Edited 2016-11-25 06:49 (UTC)

Stella had long since been finished eating when she'd heard the news, sitting in the inn's main room nursing a second glass of whisky, taking her time with it because she'd not been sure how long the alcohol would last, if what she'd heard about this place so far was any indication. The moment she'd heard someone had been killed, though, she'd got to her feet immediately, abandoned her glass.

She's just come from investigating the murders of three women, taken from the world in the prime of their lives, and the first, immediate thought through her head is not again. The second is that someone needs to take action and, naturally, that she is going to be one of those people. It's not just her ingrained detective's instincts, but her desire to make things right in whatever way she possibly can.

Stella has seen uglier crime scenes — some of Spector's were worse in terms of sheer psychological impact — but the sheer brutality takes her breath for a second. But only a second: she stops, inhales slowly, takes her horror and disgust and puts it into the back of her mind so she can concentrate.

There's a man there, kneeling by the body, and though she needs to have him step away because the scene is already contaminated enough, she has done this enough times to realize she needs to be sensitive about her approach. "Sir?" she says. When he doesn't respond, she raises her voice slightly; her tone remains as even and calm as she can make it. "Sir, can you hear me?"

Stella doesn't step too close, nor does she reach out to touch him, at least not yet. He's plainly larger and more powerful than she is herself, and she does have enough sense to realize it might not be good to startle him.

It takes the second try for her voice to register, and even then, the knit of his brow in response is slight, a microexpression before recognition spreads across his features. But his attention does shift to her, first with his eyes and then with a proper turn of the head, stepped like he's detaching. Compartmentalizing, maybe, although not well.

He doesn't know her face. Any other time, it would be easy enough to assume she's a recent arrival, but in this moment he's wondering if he did get shot in the head again, if this is the cycle of his life. Care about somebody, fail to keep them safe, watch them die, wait for death. Except death keeps standing him up.

"Yeah," he answers, quiet and not especially helpful. Yeah, he can hear her. So what. At least he's focusing on her, though, and looking a little more grounded the longer he does.

She recognizes that, the careful detachment, but there's something about his reaction that suggests something else there, something not strictly related to the scene at hand, though what that might be she doesn't know.

Not that it matters right now when her first concern is making sure he's not— well, perhaps she's too late, he's already touched the body. Normally this would mean she'd want him to go through all the proper procedures — get his clothing, get a DNA sample and fingerprints — but she's struck suddenly with the stark reality that she can't, that this place has none of the forensic conveniences she's used to and probably never will.

"All right," she says, stifling her frustration. Her voice doesn't change, keeps that same controlled tone — not emotionless, just calm. "Could I have you stand up and move away from the body, please? My name is Stella Gibson, I'm a police officer."

The present tense is intentional; as far as she's concerned she is still a Met detective, has been so long that it's a part of how she identifies herself.

The body. That's what it is now; he knows that, but hearing it said out loud is something different. Acknowledging it requires a certain shifting of gears. This isn't Karen anymore. But it's still her body, still deserving of respect.

Frank doesn't miss the implication of her tense, the same way he always says he's a Marine — he's been retired for months, and trapped in this village for half of it, but there's no such thing as an ex-Marine. You don't undo that kind of training.

Still, the look he gives her is skeptical. "A detective?" Because he's not handing Karen over to some off duty beat cop, just saying. But something about the way she conducts herself — professional, confident — gives him enough of an answer to start him moving at least. He looks at his hands once more, at what's in them, at how fucking stupid it had been to think he could save anybody, and starts disentangling himself.

"Her stomach was here," he adds, gesturing as he pulls back, careful. His tone is still soft, but even, like he's giving a report. "Still warm—" Or was that Lisa? "I think she was still warm when we found her."

"Nearly twenty years," Stella confirms; not just any detective, but a seasoned one, and with that come a few implications: that she has seen a lot of homicides, probably a lot of bad ones like this, and that she knows what she's doing. It's meant to be reassuring, after a fashion. Whether that works or not is another story, of course.

As he starts to pull back, she reaches down to pick up the lamp he'd apparently dropped so she can see better. Stella doesn't have her notebook to write down what she sees, so her own memory will have to do. Still warm — so she can't have been dead more than two, three hours at the most. The evisceration, the tearing of the throat and scalp, and what are clearly defensive wounds on the woman's hands and arms suggest an attack by some kind of wild animal — which is only good because it doesn't immediately imply that a person did this to her and that they don't have a murderer hiding in their midst.

But the equally deliberate posing of the body, propped against the tree right out here in the middle of the village, says something else — and suddenly Stella feels cold all over. This is not like Paul Spector posing the bodies of his victims like dolls for his own pleasure. This feels like a message, like someone saying, don't think for one second that you're safe.

She knows better than to speculate out loud, though, especially in front of someone who's obviously traumatized. Stella steps back a little, to give the man room to stand up. She doesn't go far, though, and won't until someone's able to clear the scene.

"Did you know her?" she asks, just a touch softer around the edges.

Frank nods. Her not insignificant experience does seem to dispel some of the wariness from his body language. He's seen plenty of bodies, even done his share of investigations of a sort, but recon is a different animal than homicide. If Stella knows what she's doing, he's tentatively prepared to let her.

"She was a friend," he confirms, taking a step back. Stella doesn't need to speculate aloud for Frank to be thinking it, wondering who or what could have done this and how he can get his hands on them. His unbloodied hand rubs back over his scalp, trying to force himself to think straight, focus, do something. Karen was a friend, and kind and fierce and alive not so long ago, and she didn't deserve this.

"She was a fighter, too, and I don't mean just in spirit. She was fighting in some battle back home. She had-- gifts, you know? The starting fires with your mind kind. She wouldn't have gone down easy."

"'Starting fires with your mind,'" she echoes, and while she's careful to make that not sound as disbelieving as she feels, a trace of that will probably come through regardless. Stella comes from a world of hard facts and tangible evidence; superhuman abilities fall a little outside that norm.

Still, right now it does no one any good to linger on that — and when Stella looks him in the face and says, "We will find what did this to her," she means every word. She's not even necessarily speaking for herself — doubtless there are other people here who knew Karen, who will be invested in getting justice on her behalf, and that is a responsibility Stella may not be able to claim regardless of how responsible she may feel — but she sounds resolute, like someone who has had to say those words many times.

The significance of the fact that she said we doesn't occur to her until after she's already said it. Is she starting to consider herself a part of this group already, after only a few days? Then again, it's always been the case that tragedies like this have a way of bringing people together.

"What's your name?"

Frank eyes her a beat, noting the skepticism, but considering he'd be about as skeptical if he hadn't seen it himself, he doesn't press for now. She'll believe it or she won't, and maybe it's not such a bad idea to have a dissenting opinion.

"Frank. Frank Castle, ma'am." His manners are coming back slowly along with the rest of him, but he still sounds distracted. We'll find what did this.

"--You mean who, don't you?" He asks with a tired, brittle sort of bitterness creeping into his voice. "Animals, the four-legged kind anyway, they don't gut something they're not going to eat. Don't make a show of it."

Not like this. He sounds like he knows. (Whether that's because he's seen it or because he's done it is hard to say.)

"No. No, they don't," Stella says, and though she's otherwise calm it's clear that that specific assessment bothers her. Still—

"But the way her throat's been torn out — this looks like teeth or claws. A knife cut would have cleaner edges. The tearing of the scalp here... I would say she's been dragged by something much larger."

It's dark, though, and the lamplight only affords her so much. Stella lets out a breath, steps back a little. "She needs a post-mortem and I'm not sure how likely we are to get one, a real one." Which is her way of saying that she is not a medical examiner and she could be wrong — but Stella has long been in the habit of going with her instincts when it comes to things like this.

Frank nods. "Half our weapons are made of animal parts." Bone knives. Claws. Kiss saying. But he doesn't sound like he disagrees, exactly. It had to have been something strong. Enhanced human, is what Frank's thinking, except the only two he knows in the village wouldn't do this. He pulls his gaze away from the body again.

"I don't know medicine, but I've got a strong stomach if I can be of any help. I've- seen worse things," He says, like that fact ought to make him more able to handle this instead of less. He brings his bloodied hands together to keep his trigger finger from twitching. "I want to see right done by her."

She makes a considering noise in answer to his first words; it makes sense they'd have improvised weaponry made from animal bone here, and that's important information to know in case — just in case — something like this were to happen again. But she's also not convinced that a human being did this, even though the posing of the body should indicate as much. Frank doesn't sound entirely convinced, either, so she isn't the only one here who finds this strange.

Stella looks up at him again when he says he's seen worse, and one of her brows arches a little. That could either be a good indicator, or a very bad one. Seeing the movement of his hands, she passes the lamp back to him so he'll have something to hold on to.

"The least we can do is give her a funeral," she suggests. There's a brief pause, then, "Do you know if we've a doctor who could examine her?"

She's not hoping for an actual pathologist, but in theory any doctor could perform a credible examination to try to determine how this woman died.

To her credit, Veronica doesn't scream. Or maybe that's not to her credit at all, she thinks -- Shouldn't she scream? Isn't that a normal reaction to something like this, to something that should be from a movie but isn't, the little details too real -- The copper tang of blood in her nose and mouth, the wispy drift of steam as the body cools?

A hand lifts and presses to her mouth -- She thinks she might be sick, has to swallow down the taste of bile and mashed potatoes, and god, should they have known? Maybe they should have, maybe it really was too good to be true, maybe gifts here never come without a price.

"Frank," she says when she spies him standing nearby, the name little more than a whisper. She stares at his bloody hands a long, tremulous moment before surging forward and grasping them in her own, her fingers shaking as she tries to wipe them hastily clean with the hem of her coat, focus fixed as if this makes any kind of difference at all.

There's so much blood now, on Karen's clothes, on the ground, in his mind, and for that first split second as Veronica takes his hands in her own, he doesn't see her trying to clean him up - he just sees blood on her clothes, and his heart is in his throat, his fingers tightening to stop her on instinct. (Not her, too.)

"Hey--" She's shaking, he can feel it now where their hands meet. "No, come on," he pleads, his voice rough with emotion, and maybe the cracks in his composure are just rare signs of humanity, or maybe it's all the more frightening to see someone who never lets himself fall apart on the brink of doing just that. Still, he turns to put himself between her and the body, holding her hands firmly to steady her. "Come on, you don't need that painted on the insides of your eyelids."

Steve had eaten. It would've been foolish not to. They all eat what this place provides them with; the time for being wary is long past, and he's well aware of what it's like enduring the cold on an empty stomach, even if he's better able to endure it nowadays. (He's seen in the mirror that he's lost some weight, some muscle. Less than he would've without the serum, not even enough to really notice with clothes on, but he can see it and isn't sure he knows how to feel about it.) He reflects now that for all the fear this will cause, it's at least not being heightened by hunger. It remains to be seen how long that lasts, the steps they can take to stave it off.

He doesn't believe that the meal was necessarily a warning sign, or an omen (doesn't, in general, believe in omens; he's friends with a god whom he'll call no such thing, his faith lying elsewhere). But it turns out that it was a distraction, whether intentional or not, and it's that knowledge that makes the food go leaden in his stomach, moreso than her appearance. He's seen too many bodies destroyed on the battlefield to lose his dinner over that. Granted, most of those had been men, but this also isn't the first time it wasn't.

Steve had looked away from her before he wouldn't be able to anymore, though not directionlessly. He watches Frank instead, what he can see of the blood on his hands and the expression on his face in the lamp light while others talk to and around him about what to do with the body. When that's underway he moves away from Natasha, who'd come out with him at the news, albeit a few paces behind. She's still favoring her bruised knee, for all that he knows she wouldn't show the pain if she could help it. Well, she got off easy, and can take her lumps.

He stops in front of Frank. It's dark, and given that and their last conversation it's perhaps difficult to tell whether his posture is confrontational, but he doesn't try to block Frank's view of her. "Come with me," he says, low but with command to it, and no more of that than is hopefully enough for the man's training to permeate the obvious shock. "We're gonna get snow any day now. I wouldn't be surprised if that's tonight. We can make a place to bury her before the ground gets too hard."

Edited 2016-12-01 04:08 (UTC)

If the immediate straightening of Frank's posture is any indication, that tone of voice gets through to him before he even registers who's speaking, and for a split second, he doesn't hear Steve at all; he hears his old C.O. He hears the Colonel telling him to keep this shoulder locked, his head down, and laughing through the blood in his mouth. They call you the Punisher. Prove it.

But he turns his head, and his vision clears in time to catch the rest. Rogers. A place to bury her. They'll need that, now that she's just a body, and of all the people who could suggest it, Steve is one of the few whose judgment he'd trust. But it means leaving her, and reluctance drags his gaze back to her mangled form once more before he nods, silent in agreement. His boots drag in the dirt, but he takes a step to follow Steve.

"Supposed to be on holy ground," he says eventually, not to suggest they find some, but like it's just one more way everything about this is wrong. "She's Catholic, there's— supposed to be a liturgy, sacraments and shit."

She's gone and they can't even bury her right. (For Maria and the kids, he doesn't know if it was any better. They were in the ground before he even woke up.)

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outside, frank & karen's body | OTA | cw: gore, oblique suicidal ideation

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