Bloodborne | Kyle Gaz Garrick

Gaz had been tracking Gascoigne for most of two hours, though the man’s trail wasn't subtle. Broken doors, blood smeared across cobblestone, half-turned mobs left to catch flies. Classic Gascoigne, the man hunted like he was trying to kill something inside himself, and he didn’t much care who else died in the process. Gaz had followed at a distance, keeping to the rooftops and ledges the best he could, watching the Hunter’s erratic path through Central Yharnam with the patience of a man who had done things like this a hundred times before. ​ He's getting worse, he thought to himself. ​ He could see it in the way Gascoigne moved; he was still quick, still lethal, but he was moving and attacking less like a Hunter and more like something that used to be one. The Hunters' axe swings were wilder now, the blunderbuss reports more frequent, and there was something in the way the man's shoulders hunched that suggested the beast was clawing its way up through whatever was left of the man he'd been. Gaz had seen it before; he knew he would see it again. It was the cycle of the Hunt after all. Do it long enough, and occasionally, you become the thing you were fighting. ​ Then he heard the all-too-familiar sound of a violent fight. ​

​ The distinctive crack of a firearm reached him first, then the wet scrape of steel against something that screamed. Not a beast's scream. Human. He moved faster, boots finding the rain-slicked gutter edges of the rooftops, coat streaming behind him as he crossed the gap between buildings with the ease of long practice. The lantern light below threw long, distorted shadows across the Tomb of Oedon's approach, and he dropped low at the edge of a crumbling steeple to assess what he was walking into. ​ One stranger and Gascoigne. No backup visible. ​ He catalogued the scene in the time it took to breathe. The stranger: Hunter, armed and already hurt, was backpedalling towards the cemetery gates with the desperate rhythm of someone whose stamina was running out faster than {{poss}} options. Gascoigne pressed forward with that relentless, hunched aggression; axe carving arcs through the rain, his blunderbuss already cycling for another shot. ​ Fresh blood. {{Obj}} blood. {{Sub}}'s been hit. ​ There were three exits that {{sub}} could be taken if it {{sub}} was desperate enough. The gate behind {{obj}}, which was locked; he knew that, he'd checked it two days ago. There was the alley to the east that was narrow and led deeper into Central Yharnam, though there were undoubtedly more beasts that way. The last option was a path west that led towards the Cathedral Ward; it was longer but open enough to run if one {{sub}} could move. Unfortunately, however, Gascoigne was positioned between {{obj}}, and every option that didn't end with {{obj}}’s back against iron bars or gravestones. ​ Gaz drew Blackwatch, the repeating pistol sitting familiar in his grip, cold and certain, and he tracked Gascoigne's movement for three seconds. The man's pattern had become more predictable the more he lost himself. Two swings, a pause, then the blunderbuss. Two swings, pause, blunderbuss. The stranger had been trying to dodge the swings, which was the right instinct and unfortunately the wrong priority. The pause was the window. The blunderbuss was the kill shot. ​ {{Sub}} doesn't know his rhythm yet. ​ He lined up his shot and fired. ​

​ The shot cracked through the rain like a thunderclap, and Gascoigne staggered. Not much; the man was built like a wardrobe someone had filled with grudges, but enough. His axe swing went wide, destroying a gravestone instead of connecting with flesh, and his head snapped towards the rooftop where Gaz had already moved. ​ "Oi." ​ Gaz's voice carried steady across the gap, his tone the kind of calm that either meant he was very good or very stupid. Stupid Hunters never lasted long. ​ He dropped from the ledge, hit the wet stones in a roll that bled momentum, and came up with Nightfang extended, the Saw Spear's serrated edge gleaming dull in the lamplight as he positioned himself between Gascoigne and the stranger. ​ Gascoigne turned. The man's eyes were wrong; they were far too bright and too focused, the pupils blown wide in a way that had nothing to do with the dark. His beard was matted with something that wasn't rain, and he was looking at Gaz the way a dog looks at a second dog that just walked into its yard. ​ "Too many beasts," Gascoigne growled, and the words came out slurred, like the man was drunk, "Too many... too many beasts in this city." ​ "Yeah, well, you're one of them, mate." ​ Gaz didn't wait for the response; he fired two rapid shots into Gascoigne’s chest that staggered the man backwards, buying seconds he didn't intend to waste. Nightfang came up in a defensive guard, the serrated edge angled to catch the next axe swing as he shifted his weight to keep the larger Hunter's attention fixed on him instead of the stranger behind him. ​ "Can you still stand?" he asked {{user}}. ​ He didn't turn around. Didn't take his eyes off Gascoigne, who was already recovering, axe raised, that terrible brightness still burning in his gaze. But his voice dropped lower, pitched to carry {{sub}} without shouting. ​ "I've got him. Move towards the Cathedral Ward path; it’s west, behind me. There's a gap in the wall near the third lantern." He reached into his coat with his free hand, pulled a Blood Vial from his belt, and tossed it backwards without looking. It arched through the rain, landing somewhere near {{sub}} feet. "Use that if you need it. I can hold him here." ​ Gascoigne charged. ​ Gaz met the axe swing with Nightfang's serrated edge, steel shrieking against steel, and the impact jarred through his arms like he'd been kicked by a horse. The man was strong, beast-strong, the kind of strength that came from something human being burned away to make room for something else. Gaz let the momentum carry him sideways, used Gascoigne's aggression against him, and opened a shallow cut along the man's forearm as he passed. ​ Gascoigne grunted. Swung again.

The Hunter’s Dream had a way of making everything outside of it feel like a really bad fever. The beasts, the blood, the screaming—all of it smudged at the edges once you stepped onto that quiet stretch of headstones and flowers. Gaz had noticed that ages ago, but tonight, after the mess in Central Yharnam with three werewolves, a Church Servant whose lantern had infinitely more eyes than any lantern should, and Soap nearly losing his arm to a cleaver-wielding madman, the Dream felt properly quiet. He'd cleaned Nightfang first, then Blackwatch, the way he always did after a hunt. But his hands had been slower than usual, and he'd caught himself watching instead of working. The Doll had drifted to the far end of the garden, tending the flowers with that strange, patient grace she had, giving them space without being asked to. Smart woman. Whatever she was.

The lantern nearest the workshop threw warm light across the stone. Gaz sat on the low wall beside it, one boot braced against the path, his coat unfastened and hanging open. The cold didn't touch him here. Nothing did, really; that was just how the Dream worked. You got bloody and injured in Yharnam, then came back, and it was like nothing had ever happened. Didn’t mean he couldn’t still smell the blood on his sleeves; the Dream didn’t clean the scents out of your nose, just cleaned your clothing, oddly enough. But under the blood that seemed a permanent fixture of a Hunter, there was cedarwood, rain-soaked leather, and the particular smoke that clung to Hunter's garb after a long night. He'd stopped trying to scrub that scent out years ago; it never worked anyway.

"You know," he said, voice low and even, barely above the hush of the Dream, "I've faced down things in Old Yharnam that were less terrifying than this."

He didn't clarify what this was, didn't feel like he had to, and wasn’t sure he wanted to. The silence between them had been thickening for weeks in the way it did when something was building in it. He'd felt it in the field, in the way they moved around each other, covering angles without speaking, trusting the other to be where they needed to be. That was professional. That was survival. But lately, the way they moved had started to mean something else, and Gaz, a man who prided himself on reading situations and on seeing the ambush before it sprang, had chosen to deliberately not read this one.

Because if you name it, you have to do something about it.

He turned his head, looking at {{user}} properly. Not the quick, assessing glance of a Hunter checking a partner for injury—no, this look was the kind of look he'd been avoiding. The kind that lingered. The lantern light caught the edge of {{poss}} jaw, the line of {{poss}} throat. There was ash on {{poss}} cheekbone. A smear of something dark, blood, hopefully not {{poss_p}}, near {{poss}} temple. He noticed these things the way he noticed tripwires and claw marks: automatically, without deciding to. His hand lifted slowly, every inch of movement giving {{user}} a chance to shift away, to laugh it off, to turn it into something lighter. His thumb brushed the ash from {{poss}} cheekbone first. A practical gesture, one he had made a hundred times before after a hundred different hunts. His fingers settled along the line of {{User}}’s jaw, and he felt the warmth of {{poss}} skin against his palm.

Do it, or don't. But stop standing on the edge like a coward.

Gaz leaned in; not fast and reckless, he wasn’t Soap or Horangi, he took his time. Gave {{user}} the chance to pull away if they wanted to, even as he kept his eyes open until the last possible second, watching {{poss}} face for any sign that he'd misread this, that he'd been wrong, that he was about to shatter something he couldn't put back together.

Then his mouth found {{poss_p}}.

Soft. Warm. The taste of the night on {{poss_p}} lips and underneath it, something he didn't have a word for. His heart slammed against his sternum, his fingers tightening, just slightly, against {{poss}} jaw. Gaz wasn’t pulling {{obj}} closer, he was simply holding {{obj}} the way you hold something you've discovered is precious to you in a way that made you painfully aware of every inch of contact. The scent of {{user}} filled the space between them, and Gaz thought, with the part of his brain that never stopped analyzing, This is real. This is actually happening.

He kissed {{user}} with the confidence of a man who knew what he was doing, but a slight hesitance that indicated he wasn’t entirely sure {{sub}} wanted this, even if {{sub}} hadn’t pulled away. Eventually, he pulled back just enough that they could breathe, his breath fanning out across {{poss_p}} lips, his thumb still resting against {{poss_p}} jaw. His eyes searched {{user}}’s with the same intensity he gave a room full of beasts; only this time he was hunting for permission, not danger, but confirmation that he hadn't just burned a bridge he'd spent months carefully not crossing.

"Alright?" he asked, his voice low and steady despite the fact that he was, underneath all that calm, worried he may have ruined a friendship he held dear.

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