Alopeci? Hey wake up it’s your turn to guard.” Alexander whispered, shaking him awake.
“Unh yes, yes I’m up.” Alopeci groaned slowly getting up and stretching, standing up and loading his sawn-off with shells just in case, looking at the group sleeping around the slowly dying fire.
“Hey Alopeci what exactly do we do with the girl?” Alexander continued as he sat down by the fire watching the looking over at the now sleeping form of Fluttershy, all curled up and wrapping vipers extra trench coat around her like a protective cocoon, using Yuri’s chest as a pillow who didn’t seem to mind it as he laid there snoring away with his drool forming a thin stream down his chin barely missing Fluttershy’s head.
“Well I dunno maybe drop her off at the Bar?” Alopeci shrugged, holstering his sawn-off and picked out his PDA to check the map and noting the time. “I know Viper want to return to Skadovsk but it’s just a slight detour, either come with or head back it’s up to you guys.”
“Doubt Yuri will like that.” Alexander sighed, holding his hand out as Alopeci took out a cigarette.
“What?” Alopeci said, raising an eyebrow as he put the cigarette in his mouth.
“Come on man you know what I want.” Alexander said, motioning with his fingers.
“Fine, but this raises your debt to an entire package.” Alopeci smiled as he took out another one for his friend and holding out his lighter to light both of them.
“You’re such a cheapskate, well have fun with the watch.” Alexander smirked as he laid down, waving him away.
Alopeci chuckled blowing him a kiss before turning around and walking closer to the mouth of the tunnel, breathing in the cold air as he looked out seeing the rain still falling heavily over the zone, listening in to a lone Pseudodog howling somewhere deep in the forest, almost feeling bad for the little bastard being away from his pack, picking up his PDA to watch the time seeing it being nothing more than two in the morning, taking a few steps back into the tunnel to sit upon one of the derelict cars and look through the PDA seeing some new messages, smiling to himself as he read through a few messages, sending a few ones himself to his contacts and a small update to Owl about an eta he would receive the mercenaries PDA.
Eventually tiring of it and putting it back into his pocket and instead taking out his Veles detector, starting it up and frowning a bit as he saw it had a low battery, blinking a bit as it beeped as it detected either an anomaly or an artifact, taking a quick look back towards the slowly dying embers further in before holding out the detector to see what it reacted to, or if it was just going weird because of the low battery, giving it a small smack in the side as went dead, swearing a bit as he shook it until it reacted again, pulling up his hood as he walked out into the rain soon seeing what it reacted to, a long and thick tangle of burnt fuzz hanging from the top of the tunnel holding his detector up to it as it reacted to it, putting it back into his other pocket and reaching a hand into the fuzz flinch a bit as it stung him, feeling around for a moment before his fingers closed around a thorny item, pulling it out with a small chuckle.
“Gotcha you little shit, thought you could hide from me eh?” He said to the little artifact, slightly disappointed it was only a Thorn artifact, but rubles are rubles so any little bit helps, shrugging as he was about to put it into his backpack remembering suddenly, he left it by the fire and really not wanting to put it into his pockets even if it would fit. Wiping his hand free from any residue stuff from the fuzz as he walked back into the tunnel, tilting his head a bit and listening to the rain again, pulling the hood off and flinging the butt of the cigarette away and sitting back down on the car to wait out the rain, putting the thorn artifact down on the hood not to prick himself on it.
Slowly dozing off little by little checking the time every once in a while trying his best to not fall asleep out of boredom, taking out the shells from the shotgun and twirling it around his finger, doing his best to imitate the old western movies to see if it was possible to do with a bigger gun than a six shooter, entertaining himself with it for a moment until the radio came alive.
“Anyone hearing this please respond we are in deep shit over here please anyone close by we are pinned down by zombies and are low on ammo please brothers loners in need please we got artifacts with us!” He heard, smiling to himself as he looked at the SOS location on the PDA, seeing it not too far away from the tunnel, already thinking through if it would be worth it to scavenge the poor souls soon to be another casualty in the zone. Scratching his nose, a bit as he put away the PDA and picked up the Thorn again to look at it closer. Only looking up as he suddenly saw something large walk into the tunnel emitting some grunting noises, turning his head slowly at the ugly abomination sniffing around and shaking itself free from water. Not wanting to scare the mutant, Alopeci only sat there watching it look around for a moment before looking up at him, blinking at the human watching it and giving off a garbled low squeal. Eventually turning into a growl as it noticed the danger of a human and taking a few steps back, getting some distance from it.
“Shshsh fleshie I ain’t going to hurt ya, so no loud squealing and waking the others okay?” He shushed the mutant, alone it was less dangerous than a blind dog but could get quite grumpy if pushed too far, backing off a little himself, grabbing the Thorn and trying to move as slowly as possible not seeing the point in scaring it too much so it would run around waking the others or waste a few shots with the same outcome. Slowly sliding off the car and giving it some room as he walked back further into the tunnel, seeing it could be used as a simple warning if anything else wandered into the tunnel, slowly backing up keeping the mutant in his view seeing it staring at him for a moment before it lost interest and begun sniffing around looking for a good spot to rest.
“Man, if you weren’t such a nasty mutant you would’ve almost been cute.” He smiled as the mutant laid down. Wondering for a moment what happened to its flock had disappeared to, watching it as he took a few steps back towards the group, suddenly thinking about the odd girl who hadn’t said much coherent things, other than how she had eaten grass and other things to survive, alone far from her family wondering if it was the same with the lone flesh or if the rest of the pack had been torn apart,
“Well you aren’t the prettiest one either.” Yuri rumbled, putting a heavy hand upon his shoulder, causing him to jump in surprise.
“Yuri godammit!” Alopeci growled as he dropped the artifact, giving his old friend a frown as he bowed down to pick it back up.
“Shush boy don’t wake the others.” Yuri smiled, holding a finger to his mouth, taking a few steps forward to squat down a bit, watching the lone flesh happy to be out of the rain.
“Where’s the girl? And why are you up?” Alopeci asked, as he looked back at where the old man had come from, seeing him not wearing his worn trench coat.
“Because Its almost time to move out? And she’s all snuggled up into a trench coat cocoon.” He smiled, glancing back at Alopeci tapping his wrist with a finger.
“What? Oh, dammit the stupid summertime savings shit!” Alopeci sighed pulling out the PDA again to look at the time.
“Ah well are the other up?”
“Nope, give them another five before kicking them awake.” Yuri smirked, standing back up with a grunt and stretching a bit and taking out a piece of bread and breaking a bit off to toss to the flesh, who only eyed him for a moment before slowly inching forward to sniff at the piece before licking it up.