trans_9 | Alcohol, the alternative to feeling like myself

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Alcohol, the alternative to feeling like myself

The world was busy, and so fast. Always moving faster then Orc could move, or think. It seemed like life was passing in the slow solid blinks of his beady little eyes.

Ever since Howard's death he didn't feel as compelled to be useful. To take care of himself. What was the point really? They were all going to die sooner or later. And it's not like he deserved that second chance Howard was always going on about.

Howard...how long had it been? Between the drinking and Stacy's own peculiar grasp of time he had lost track.

But it didn't matter. All that mattered was forgetting. Forgetting where he was, forgetting what he was. Forgetting about Howard, Betty, home.

And so he kept drinking. And he kept moving. To stay in one place for too long risked trouble. People finding him, feeling bad for him. They were just being nice. But he didn't deserve nice. Not after what he'd done.

The city was perfect for this because there was so much of it. He didn't move fast, and he got tired easily. But he had plucked the beertree clean and drug a cooler with him. One of Howard's last gifts. Maybe Howard had more beer in the warehouse...he would have to stop there and see.

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“What the hell are you doing?”

A slender girl came marching towards Orc, curtain of black hair flowing behind her.

She stopped a few paces away from him, eyes flickering to the mine behind him, apprehension flashing across her face for a moment before she placed her hands on her hips, frowning at him.

“Are you trying to get killed?” Diana paused and shrugged her shoulders. “Okay, stupid question, but are you trying to unleash hell and get the rest of us killed too?”

Edited 2012-05-20 11:16 (UTC)

Orc gave a little start when she first called out and turned to face her, probably faster then he'd moved at any point since he'd gotten on Stacy. Then he stared in confusion.

"What?" Came his dumbfounded reply. He hadn't seen Diana since she told him about Howard so for her to appear just after finding the remains of Perdido was eerie.

Rolling her eyes she moved closer. The look that crossed her feature clearly showed she did not want to be any closer to the mine but she forced herself to not look at the offending object, childishly pretending it wasn't a close as she knew it was.

"I would have thought even you knew to keep away from this place."

A crow suddenly alighted on Orcs stone shoulder, cawing at him in a fashion that resembled chastising.

Orc actually winced at the crowing and tilted his head slightly as if that would help. "I didn't know it was here...I just...found it." He commented suddenly reminded of being caught stealing a piece of cake at his cousins wedding. His mother had used the same tone on him then and it was an unpleasant echo of the same kind of guilt.

Diana arched her eyebrow skeptically. Orc would have almost been cute pulling that if he weren't three times the size of her and made of rock. "Well, now you've found it you can leave it alone."

She didn't know why she was bothering with Orc. She'd deliberately been avoiding him since the Howard incident. She didn't want the responsibility of looking after him. It wasn't her problem, why should she bother?

But he was still from her world, no matter what she did he would still have shared some of those horrors.

She'd known the trail of alcohol containers had been his but she'd been all set to ignore it until she'd seen what direction it was going in. She might not overly care for his well being, but she certainly didn't want the guy dead, or bringing back her nightmares from FAYZ.

Diana took ahold of the collection of pebbles that made up his littlest finger, the only part she could see that she could actually get her slender digits around, and tugged lightly. She knew there was no way of physically pulling him of course, but even well placed nudges will move an elephant. "Come on. We're not staying here."

A part of her made the vague note that she was probably one of the few girls that had ever held Orc's hand.

If Orc hadn't soaked his brain in alcohol he might have noticed too, and probably would in another minute or so. Instead he remained seated and cast a dark gaze back to the entrance which seemed haunting and sick. Like poison given shape.

"Does everyone know about this?" A surprisingly logical question given who it was coming from.

Diana frowned and moved to stand infront, blocking his view with her body. "I haven't told anyone. Howard could have told people though. I think he took a peek inside, I'm not sure."

"Didn't he tell you?" She already knew the answer.

Orc didn't bother to try looking around her. He knew where it was. Beady little eyes puzzled and pondered and looked unsure and questioning. Had Howard told him? Had he just forgotten?

"I don't think he did..." And that was even more confusing. Why wouldn't Howard tell him about something like this? Wasn't it important?

"Yeh, well, that's just the kind of guy he was." She poked his gnarled brow.

"Now get up."

Orc sighed and forced himself to his feet. There was something impressive about that much weight being shifted and moved. When he stood he towered over Diana but still felt decidedly smaller.

"What do we do about it?"

"Do about it? What do you mean 'do about it'? We leave whatever's down there to rot."

Orc didn't seem satisfied with that answer and displayed this by reaching into his cooler and opening up another bottle.

"S'dangerous."

Diana snatched the bottle from his hand. "It's stuck there, whatever it is, and we're not about to go poking it with a stick and waking it up."

That made sense but why was it leaving Orc so unsure. It took him a minute to realize she had snatched his drink away. He dug around in the cooler for another while he strained himself to think about it. There was something about it that didn't sit right.

Sighing, Diana covered the second bottles top with her free hand. "Look, you can be all pensive and drunk elsewhere, okay? I don't care. But you can't do it here."

Now Orc was just linefaced at having been denied his beer twice over. Attempting to move it around her hand he took the strap on his cooler and began to drag it in another direction. The vague direction that the city would be in if things made sense on Stacy which obviously they didn't.

"What's pensive mean?"

"It means sitting and moping. You do it alot."

He didn't really have an answer for that so he just grunted and stopped waiting to see if they were far enough away that she would let him have a drink. The cave was still visible but it was much less imposing to him at this distance. To test this theory he tried once more to drink from the bottle in his hand.

Diana rolled her eyes and put the two bottles she was holding back in his cooler so she had a free hand to rub her forehead in annoyance, the chill of her fingers calming her somewhat.

"Look, Charlie, we'll go to your place, you can even drink on the way, it doesn't matter to me, but that means you need to move your gravel coated backside, got it?"

How Howard worked with guy she'll never know.

Edited 2012-05-20 23:14 (UTC)

It was difficult to figure out just why she was so angry. She was acting like he'd done something wrong, but he'd just been looking at the entrance trying to figure out what to do. Was that really so bad?

Remaining still for a moment he pondered her words, and her use of his real name. Very few people even knew his real name anymore. He was just Orc. Charles was long dead as far as Orc was concerned. Gone with that last patch of visible skin.

"Don't have a place." He stated simply. This was the first time he'd actually realized that with Howard gone he didn't really have a place of his own. He always just slept in places that were Howard's, like his warehouse or the Inn he lived at with the cats.

"Well, that's great, but I think you better find one before you block a corridor after you pass out."

Orc shrugged and took a moment to imagine himself passed out in a hallway with people trying to get past him. Lucky he didn't spend too much time in tight corridors.

"Doesn't feel right." he remarked glancing over his shoulder from the direction they had come. He couldn't yet understand the guilt he was feeling knowing that something so dangerous was there and he was just walking away.

"I don't care." She answered back, trying to hold back the irritation Orc was causing to mount within her. She just wanted to get away from the mine, hadn't she made that clear?

It might be childish and stupid, but so far her technique of ignoring the mines existence had worked well for her. She didn't want Orc coming along to mess everything up.

"I've got a little time before work, get moving now and we'll find you a bungalow or something, alright?"

Orc on the other hand couldn't get it out of his head that leaving it alone was probably just as dangerous. But he also didn't know what else to do. After all if the monster was in there it had already been killed once before hadn't it?

"What's a bungalow?

More eye rolling, she was going to have a headache later. Though, she could probably convince Jinx to give her head a massage.

"It's a house with just one floor. I figure you're not too fond of stairs, right, Charlie?"

Alcohol, the alternative to feeling like myself

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