TEINAR > Wastelands

Nothing Says 'Hello' Like A Fist to the Face [Neph!]

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nephero:
There had been beans. Somewhere in the rattling ghost town of Kostya's mind, he remembered there had been beans. Beautiful, syrupy, soft and delicious beans. Enough carbs and protein to build him up and keep him going. Just a few miles more.

But there was something to be said about how little Kostya cared for the knifey ache in his stomach, how little he cared about the way his muscles shook with effort to continue on no fuel. At some point in time, long ago, some nameless human being had pointed out that mankind could not exist on bread and water alone.

Kostya felt like maybe he understood. He was going to die, that much was certain. He always did-- whether it was here or out on the salt flats or trying to take a dump where a mutated rattlesnake was hiding, Kostya was going to die. It was okay though; you got over the embarrassing deaths, picked yourself up and carried on.

A can of beans wouldn't stop that. Not for long, anyway. But oh, that hair… Kostya could stare at it for hours, hungry for more than just beans, hungry for something that had long lost its name to time and Wasteland dust. Hungry for something he could barely fathom, Kostantin yowled as that knife sank into his wrist-- and used the distraction to grab a section of this stranger's hair with his other hand. He pulled with every last bit of himself he had, felt the subtle release as strands broke and roots separated from skin.

It wasn't like he wanted it to hurt, but it probably did. Though, it did seem a fair trade for the white hot wet agony in his left wrist. That agony was dropping in temperature, quick and fast and Kostya felt the thrumming in his chest as his heart struggled to keep up with the blood he was losing.

Slit wrists! That felt familiar, numb and tingly as he lost the feeling in his left hand. His fingers were already nonresponsive, his thumb slack-- something crucial in the mechanics had been cut, though that was definitely second place concern following the veins that had been so compromised.

But he'd gotten the hair, and he grinned wide, pulling his right fist to his chest with a wheezing gasp, protecting this latest treasure for as long as he could.

He could only hope it'd still be there when he woke up.

Lion:
Ibsen's blade had cut deep, protruding out of the other side of that wrist, caught between the radius and ulna, and wedged in a little awkwardly. That thought was secondary to the yanking of hair from his scalp. Ibsen made a sound unbecoming of him - or of any man - and followed it up with a growl once the hair was properly removed. Removed with such force that it would no doubt leave small prickles of blood poking up from his scalp.

It was no matter now, however. The man beneath him was fading fast, and Ibsen yanked out that knife regardless of the angle of bone it was caught on, the force of it causing him to tumble off the shit-for-brains that ripped his hair out! Served him right! Ibsen wanted to jab that thing through his heart, but the armor was a little too inconvenient, and frankly he had better things to do.

"Fuck," he panted, rolling off him crawling toward that gun. One bullet. Just to make it quick. Ibsen twisted around, cocked back the hammer and pointed, pointing it the ragged Waster's head. Not fucking worth it. Not even a little bit. 

Already the adrenaline was fading and Ibsen holstered that gun, cleaned the blood off that bowie knife and tucked it back into the sheathe. He'd need that later to pry that delicious can of beans open. Can openers were hard to come by these days, but by now Ibsen had become something of an expert in prying open unspoilables. A hike back up to the bike and Ibsen felt his scalp, thankful it was little more than a few droplets of blood that dried before he put his hood on.

The rat bastard snatched off a good tuft from the side of his head. What the hell was wrong with him!? Why did he give so much of a shit about hair!?  And just let himself be distracted long enough to die like that...  It was fucking pathetic. And frankly, truth be told, Ibsen was a little bit disappointed the guy didn't put that much more of a fight.

He'd be just another carcass to rot in the sun. Another body in the grave. 

A kick to the brake and Ibsen took off out from the mouth of the crater, riding off for as long as the fuel in his tank could take him. He had another hovel somewhere nearby, where a canister with enough gas would refill his stores, and he'd be off again.

It was too bad, Ibsen didn't reach it before his motorcycle clunked that awful thunking sound, and with a curse, he was forced to push it the last mile to a carved out section of canyon wall, that would provide enough shade for a fire. Deep in the far corner of that rock, was a hollowed out boulder, with just the cannister that he needed. That can of beans was the only thing driving him forward. He could almost taste it in his mouth now and if he had any saliva left in his mouth he'd be drooling.

Night was falling, and the air was picking up just a little. Yeah, that can of beans would be just the pick me up he needed. Ibsen finally sank into that hole in the rock, pushing the bike as far as it would go, kicked up that brake, and might have worried about starting that fire, setting up whatever camp he could, if he hadn't just fallen to his knees, and passed out, sleeping like the dead.

nephero:
As far as dying went, bleeding out wasn't too bad. It wasn't Konstantin’s favorite, mind you, but it wasn't the worst. The dehydration he'd been suffering from had assisted in matters, and his hunger. His body just couldn't power through like it might have once done.

But hey! That was fine. Better to get it done and over with rather than dragging it out any longer.

It was a mark of how little this death was that it only took until then for him to wake up. He sputtered, coughed, exercising his dry throat and blinking his dry eyes. The open lidded staring always hurt for a bit after the fact, but a few solid blinks and sniffling tears and he was fine.

Where was he this time?

Kostya shifted where he sat up in the dirt. It was dim, dark, but there were cables and metal, and if he reached out with one hand there looked like a lot of it. Kostya took a deep breath, and laughed.

Right, the airplane. Right, right, the guy with the beans. Beans. Beans!

Kostya looked down, hilarious as that was, and felt rather than saw the hair in his right hand. Yes! Yes yes yes!

Carecully, very carefully, Kostya shifted on the ground, pulling around his messenger bag with his newly scarred left hand. That had been a deep one-- the savagery of the blow had left a thick pale-pink line on either side of his wrist, and he hummed a bit in thought. Could you pick at a scar like a scab? Best not…

He rummaged through his bag for a small coffee tin and carefully opened it. Here were his treasures: bits of wire and string and beads, and a tiny scrap of what had once been one of those colorful flyers, printed on pretty robin's egg blue paper. Not that there was much of it left, but it was enough, just enough to fold Beans’ hair into and tuck safely away.

He'd need something better, later, of course. Maybe he could trade at the next settlement he found. If he found one. Another rummage through the bag brought out a windup lantern, and a few quick turns brought it and the hollow carcass of metal to life. Beans was long gone, both the can and the person, but the one added benefit to waking up like this was he was no longer starving.

And it was night! Which meant there was plenty of nice, cool, relatively safe time to get out of here and somewhere close to familiar territory. The only problem was, which way to go?

Something fluttered above Kostya's head, and he growled. That fucking not there crow. This was, after all, entirely her fault. As if on cue, she cackled at his thoughts, and with a hiss Kostya threw sand upwards.

Which immediately fell downwards and hit him in the face. Ow. Also, right, his gas mask. Lucky he'd been dead, sleeping without that on could've killed him. Yanking the fractured mask over his face, Konstantin finally got to his feet, and stepped out into the smoggy dark of Wasteland night. And, as luck would continue to have it, there were tracks leading away.

It… was probably not the best idea, to go looking for blue right now so soon after a murder. But blue would probably mean other people. And other people would mean supplies and a job and some directions… but blue also meant tire tracks, which meant Kostya had a long way to go…

***
There were dangers to sleeping out in the open. Exposure, winds, raiders, critters. Out in the middle of nothing, raiders weren't that much of a risk. But critters were. Nasty, hobbled, hungry, bald and sunburnt and bubbling in places where cancer took hold. Genetic abnormalities brought on by chemical exposure. Pollution Plague. The Wasteland Wrack.

Chewy chewy off with your lymph-nodesie.

And sometimes, there were the things in between. Not a raider, not a critter, not a man and not-not a man. Certainly lacking in any moral and philosophical quandaries that came with attempted murder and subsequent mastication of a sleeping human being. Chewy chewy off with your nose-ie.

Or, at least, that would've been the case. The notnotnotaman had been so quiet, so careful, so starved for meat they hadn't wanted to risk their prey getting away. They had been so fixated, so, so fixated, they didn't see the bat even as it crashed into the side of their skull. They didn't see the bat after, either. Or at all. Their skull was too pulpy after that.

Kostya breathed, harsh and quiet. He hadn't expected this to happen. He'd just wanted to follow the tire tracks, make it out of the unfamiliar, work his way back to where he had been going. Not starve. But blue had stopped, far outside of anything Konstantin knew, and blue had been sleeping. Kind of weird, kind of stupid, kind of dangerous to be exposed, even if there was a nestled crag to hideyhole in. Their scrap must've taken a lot out of him, and maybe beans weren't enough.

Did he already eat them all? Kostya looked around in the dark, but didn't immediately see any kind of evidence. Oh well. He didn't exactly want to wake blue up and ask, either. Blue deserved a rest. Everyone deserved a rest. And honestly Kostya wasn't even that mad about the stabbing.

He certainly wasn't mad enough to just sit back and watch something so rare get eaten and shit out by one of the Wasteland monstrosities. No sir, not one bit. So he'd run up, smashed its head in, and now stood wondering what else to do.

Did he leave? Where did he go? He didn't want to wander off and die of thirst again. That would suuuuck. But, he had a feeling he couldn't exactly stay either. Blue still had a gun. Guns tended to hurt if you didn't catch it in the face. Kostya hated hurting.

Hm.

Best to start one thing at a time, he guessed. He pulled the notnotnotaman away from where blue slept still (so quiet! was he dead?) and began the careful process of cleaning the carcass.

Notnotnotaman. No moral or philosophical quandaries about murder and mastication. Kostya's mouth watered, and he set about making a fire, slapping slabs of thincut meat onto a flat rock and setting that over the flames.

If blue was alive and had already eaten the beans, at least Kostya would have something on his stomach. Also nothing said “friendly” like a fire and some steak, so maybe he'd avoid being shot. Maybe. Maybe.

The crow cackled, and Kostya scowled. He was going to eat that, next. If it existed.

Lion:
Somewhere in the back of Ibsen's blank mind, there was a nagging thought about how stupid it was to just collapse and fall asleep in the middle of nowhere like that. Sometimes if a trade was good, and he'd brought something particularly special to an outpost, they would allow Ibsen to snag a nap on a real bed. Or whatever free cot was lying around. That was a luxury one couldn't squander - not if they had any sort of sense. Ibsen never overstayed his welcome and he was always gone before the morning.

He never slept for more than a few hours anyway. He couldn't. Not even the Outposts were completely safe. That was an illusion saved for the weary and weak of mind. So what hours he could steal away were precious and often too few and far between. It wasn't like Ibsen to collapse like this, and he sniffed when he smelled something burning beside him.

Panic set in, thinking for a moment that he had left a fire going. Or that his motorbike had begun to leak or was overheating and he jerked awake. Ripping the goggles from his head, Ibsen scuffled closer to the bike, where it remained inert and leaning slightly to the left. What?  What the...

"FUCKHEAD!" ibsen growled again, turning swiftly around at the firelight and the body that was sitting beside it. The dead body. The very dead body that he watched bleed out in front of him and clutching that chunk of hair that he'd ripped out. His scalp was still tender from it, and idly Ibsen's hand reached up to rub at that portion of scalp. It would grow back, but that hurt like a real fucking bitch.

Clearly he was still dreaming. And this was a really awful hunger-induced nightmare. Ibsen quietly fumbled for his gun, cocking the hammer back, and hated that his hand was shaking. Rubbing the crusts in the corner of his eyes away with his free hand, yellow eyes that reflected that firelight right back at the corpse.

"You! YOU'RE DEAD! I watched you die!" Ibsen coughed out, embarrassed at clearly stating the obvious.  "What the fuck are you doing!?  You're supposed to die and stay that way, fuckhead!"

nephero:
The thudding came slow and steady at first. Twangs followed, intermittent and sweet, before both came together in a frenzy of sound. Someone long dead and long gone and long forgotten sang to him, and Kostya sang back, an echo of a ghost who'd never know who he was or even where he was or what he was doing. Which was probably for the best, considering the artist probably never wanted their song to be an anthem to carving up a half-starved humanoid.

"Mother told me, son let it be, sold my soul..." Kostya hummed away, licking dry lips against the heat of the small fire. There hadn't been too much to build it bigger, but then again, Kostya didn't need a big fire. He needed heat to cook by, some light to live by, nothing so much so that all the other critters in the Wasteland caught wise and decided to come knocking for a cup of sugar.

His eyes flicked up here and there, more out of habit than any real paranoia; you learned to keep your eyes up when you had your ears down, and Kostya's ears were way down. Not that it really mattered for him, but blue was here, and blue wasn't like him. No one was. But more importantly still, blue wasn't. And blue was too rare in this world to let it slip through his fingers. Not yet.

The meat was bubbling against the rock, folding against itself as what little fat there was to be had pulled it all inward, juices dripping away and smoking up and smelling like rumbling bellies and desperation. Kostya's favorite flavor.

Sudden movements what they were, however, had him on his feet in an instant, headphones yanked down and bat in hand. He'd expected, maybe, another notnotnotaman, or a swarm of crows, or any number of haunting horrors that came up from the earth in the dead of night. But it was just blue, goggles off and eyes wide and-- oh. Oh, blue. Yellow was far from Kostya's favorite thing, but yellow might start growing on him at this rate.

Kostya's mouth pulled hard and fast to the side, baring his teeth all coyote wild he looked between bright yellow eyes and the wavering gun in blue's hand. You, you're dead, I watched you die. Yeah, that about summed it up nicely. Actually wasn't that verbatim what they said the last time? When had that been? Before or after the barbed wire? Eh, who could remember.

Kostya gestured, gently, with the end of his bat towards blue's own self, eyebrows high and grin refusing to quit.

"Yeah. It was quick. Thanks. I like 'em quick. The bigger deaths. The little deaths," here he grinned wider, if that was even possible, his eyebrows waggling in time with his laughter, "the little deaths I like slow."

Mm. Maybe not the best dinner conversation to have with a guy you'd just stabbed to death. But then again, what made good dinner conversation anymore?

Oh hey, Raider Bill, check out these eyeballs, ain't they the shit!

Well, fuck Raider Charlie, they sure as fuck are! You're gettin' mad good at that!

Hell yeah, Raider Bill, got my technique down and everything! Now help me jelly 'em and we'll put it on some toast.

Deee-lishus!!

Kostya snickered to himself, before remembering that there was a gun being aimed at him. He licked his lips again, and pointed upwards, forefinger rapping at his brow where two other scars lay, one after the other.

"Hey, gonna shoot, try for here, okay? Gut shots... I don't like gut shots. No one likes gut shots, ain't never met a man who did. But hey! I made breakfast! Steak-mmmm-mm."

He turned back to the fire, squatting down to turn over the meat with a twig, tongue at one canine as he concentrated on not throwing the whole damn thing into the fire.

"Now, with this one, you're gonna want our house red, if we had a house red. Or a house!" He threw back his head and laughed, long and howling, and shoved the latest steak off the cooking rock and onto a serving-rock. "Still got that bowie? It'll be easier."

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