Chapter One: In which the Not-So-Lone-Anymore Wanderer meets the Psycho Punch-Happy Cannibal, and general chaos ensues.
When Jayne came to, it was to the sound of an intense moist cracking sound. The only thing that he could compare it to would be the crunch of Brahmin meat as you stripped it from the bone, only this was more juicy and wet-sounding. Jayne lifted himself up onto his forearms, and immediately regretted it as a thick, severe pain ran up the length of his spine, forcing him back to the ground. Though it was mildly concerning that he couldn't seem to move the lower half of his body, the more concerning fact was that damned cracking sound. It wouldn't have bothered him under normal circumstances, but it was quite close to him, and that in itself was bothersome. He tried to think back to why he might be on the ground in the first place, but couldn't really recall. The last thing he could bring to mind was fear, adrenaline, super mutants and… flying? There was definitely flying involved.
Flying and a sick crunching noise. What the fuck was that, anyways?
"Hey, could you keep it down over there?" Jayne yelled out to the noise, his vision still swimming with lovely twirly things and shades of grey.
"Oh, well excuse me, friend. So sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep after I saved yer damn life," Responded the crunching noise. Only it wasn't a crunching noise. That had stopped. Now it was an intensely nasally, awkward speech. Huh. Jayne shifted his head a little, peering over to pinpoint the source of the voice. His vision swam some more, but gradually cleared, and to say that the incapacitated man was not prepared for the sight that met his eyes would be a tremendous understatement. There was a chap sitting there, casually chewing on a finger—a human finger—atop a pile of super mutant corpses. His brownish, wild hair was streaked with blood in places, and he gave off the distinct impression of mild, if not severe…complete and utter insanity. It was probably the eyes. Freakin' crazy looking eyes. Jayne stopped. He closed his eyes, and rolled his head back around to face the sky.
"You're not real. You're just some crazy hallucination that this near-death experience has conjured up from my brain. Please go away," He sighed. Something similar to this had happened a few times before, after all. Like that one time that he'd gotten addicted to Mentats and suffered from the withdrawal effects—holy crap, now that was some crazy shit. Grandmothers attacking him with frying pans, singing dancing Deathclaws, Yaoi Guai with top hats that spoke in pig Latin… a pain-induced hallucination of some random dude was nothing compared to that.
"'Sat so? Well dang, and here I thought I wasn't special. I'm a hallucination! Now what exactly is that?" The smaller man cocked his head at the poor bastard on the ground, calmly nibbling away at his finger food. "I mean, I been called lots of stuff before, but that ain't exactly a word that gets tossed around so often." He grinned down at the man who was pointedly ignoring him. Jayne sighed again, a world-weary exhale of carbon dioxide and radiation, and rolled his eyes skyward.
"A hallucination is- no, you know what, I'm not going to explain it to you. As soon as I feel better you'll disappear."
"That ain't real nice to say. I won't just leave you in the dirt, man. I mean, I could have just finished you off and gotten a few more snacks by now if I'd wanted to," The strange man waved his finger, now chewed down to a mere bone, before tossing the thing away.
Jayne found it rather odd that this particular hallucination was speaking to him. Usually they just flailed around or waivered in and out of his vision, but this one seemed intent on plaguing him with idle chatter. Perhaps he'd finally lost his mind. Well, what little was left of it in the first place.
He opened his eyes and glanced over to the man again, who simply smiled down at him like an idiot, and he couldn't help but notice that this hallucination was not only extremely detailed, but also had sharp, slightly yellowed teeth, and was most likely not a hallucination at all. He sighed again. Honestly, if this guy was the real deal, he'd rather deal with an illusion.
"Alright. Say you're not a figment of my depraved, pain-riddled mind; I can't move my arms without hurting myself, I can't move my legs at all, and I'm pretty sure my spine is severed in more than a few places. What the fuck are you going to do with me?" Jayne gave the man an exasperated look. Laying there in the dirt, he actually kind of hoped that the man would kill him. At least that'd be better than lying here until a Yao Guai came along, or worse—more muties. His nose started to itch. Goddamnit.
"Hmm, good question," The slight man hopped down from his throne of corpses and pressed his face close to Jayne's. His breath was rank, and that was about all Jayne could think in the way of general cognition. "I could still eat ya, but that wouldn't be right sein' as how you survived that fall. By the way that was freakin' awesome! You jumped that window like a bat outta hell, man! Best damn show I ever got heading into a building." The man grinned, still uncomfortably close to his face, and Jayne could feel the bile rising in his throat. Holy shit, that breath. It was like a mangy molerat having sex with a rotting Brahmin corpse. "Name's Dian, by the way. That's D-I-A-N, Die-Anne!"
The stranger sat back on his heels and tapped his jaw with a dirty forefinger. "Hey, how about a Stimpack bro, you don't look so good," He pulled out three of the small injectors and jabbed each into Jayne's thigh. A fast burn seeped into Jayne's muscles, but then the pain dissipated and he was left with a mere dull ache. He sat up and roughly shoved the other man away, then scratched his nose. Good lord that felt good. After engaging in this mindless self-indulgence for a moment, he directed his attention to the man-that-was-not-imaginary. The guy looked kinda Hispanic, if a little pale. Interesting face, skinny build, crazy eyes. Yeah…he preferred it when the man was imaginary.
"Dian," He said lamely.
"Yes?" A wide grin.
"As much as I appreciate the help and all… I'm gonna go now," He stood and dusted himself off, then searched his person to see if anything was missing. "Hey! Where the hell are my Stimpacks?" He glared back at the thin man, who simply shrugged and pointed to the used cartridges that he'd injected into Jayne. Jayne growled and rolled his eyes. Admittedly, he'd been hoping that this dude was just very generous and had used his own Stimpacks, but of course, this was the wasteland, and things didn't work like that.
"Nevermind. Okay, er, bye," He backed slowly away from Dian, and headed off towards Big Town. It was the closest settlement to his current location, and what they lacked in resources of any kind, they made up for with free medical care. The Stimpacks had done wonders for his back and arms, but he wasn't feeling at all top-notch yet, and he had a limp.
Jayne hadn't gone far when he realized the strange man was following him. He glanced over his shoulder at said man, who was calmly gnawing on another severed finger, and gave an involuntary shiver. He whirled on the man, striding up to him with as much intimidation as he could muster with a limp.
"Look, again, I appreciate the help and everything, but I'm going away now, alone. I don't particularly like company, and honestly, you creep me the fuck out. Now why don't you go on and get out of here before you start to piss me off." Rudeness was not something that Jayne relied too heavily upon in normal situations, but it occurred to him at one point that you really couldn't be nice to everyone. Especially not creepy weirdoes like this guy. Or Dave. God, he didn't like Dave; the man was getting even more paranoid in his old age, had two wives and was still pumping out children like a sex machine. It was just plain disturbing.
Dian stared blankly up at him for a moment, then tilted his head and gave Jayne a scrutinizing look. He squinted his eyes and leaned in close to Jayne, who in turn leaned away, his hand automatically traveling to where his Shotgun was holstered. Then Dian laughed, hearty and good-natured, and fell back on his ass, sending up a plume of dust around the two men. He laughed for a good long while, confusing the hell out of his red-headed companion, and then wiped a merry tear away as he chewed some more on his snack.
"Well shit man, I was just gonna follow you to a town fer some supplies! But now I know yer such a crackerbox, I think I'll stick around!" He chuckled some more and flung his leftovers away, then stood and grinned at Jayne, brown eyes wide and filed teeth bared. It was unnerving, to say the least. Then the smile faded away, replaced by a look of utter, complete, devastating sadness, "Oh God please don't leave me alone," The smaller man whispered, his eyes going even bigger. "I could, uh, I could carry shit. Or something," He chuckled, and his eye twitched. Jayne took a step away, his expression a mix of suspicion and mild horror. Was this guy for real?
"Now that doesn't exactly work for me," Jayne started, trying to be more delicate now. The last thing he wanted to do was upset a fucking psycho cannibal. "See, I'm very used to being alone. As in, just me. Alone. Forever," He backed away a few more paces, eyeing the other man for any sign of rapid movement. Dian appeared to think about it, looked past him for a moment, shrugged, and meandered off back in the direction they'd come from, smiling. Jayne wondered at this sudden 180 degree turn in attitude and well, direction, but didn't think much of it. He watched the other man walk away for a minute, then turned around to continue on his way… and immediately regretted it.
Not fifty feet away stood a fucking Deathclaw. And Dian had seen it. Its blank eyes trained on him, and Jayne froze in place, pulled out his Shotgun, and took a step backwards. That fucking rat bastard had seen it, and didn't say a word. Jayne took another cautious step back.
The Deathclaw charged.
Jayne bolted.
"Dian! Fuck, Dian!" He sprinted after the sauntering man, leg protesting all the while. Dian looked back at him casually. He paused mid-step, standing stock still as an excited light came into his eyes, and began laughing like a maniac. He quickly reached into his small pack and pulled out three Bottlecap Mines, setting one and sprinting away, laughing, to set another not ten yards away. Jayne saw his plan and silently praised the man's ingenuity, but was quite distracted as a huge, clawed hand ripped past his hip. "Shit shit shit!" Jayne screamed a slew of expletives as his feet tore across the loose rubble and rock, making his way towards the first mine.
The moment before he was in the bomb's detonation range, he made a sharp left and rolled out of the way. The Deathclaw, slow to react, stepped directly on the thing, and the explosion seemed to shake the earth. Jayne stood again and kept sprinting, dodging the flails of the Deathclaw as it doggedly pursued him, one of its legs twisting at an awkward angle and spewing trails of blood across the ground. He pulled the same maneuver as the first time with the second bomb, rolling away again as the Deathclaw trod on the trap.
By now the creature was on its last legs, and Jayne nearly tripped over himself as Dian shot past him towards the beast. He turned in time to see the slight man beating the shit out of the thing with a Power Fist, and promptly faceplanted in the dirt.
"Aw, fucking, shit, damn," Habitual cursing really is a nasty habit, Jayne. He pushed himself away from the ground, feeling the sick, gritty feeling of blood and dirt in his mouth, and wondered why the hell he ended up on the ground so much lately. His nose was dripping blood all over the front of his armor, and his leg was acting up again, but none of these things bothered him quite as much as the sight that his new companion made.
Dian was alternating between screaming and laughing insanely loud, swinging away at the giant creature's maw with his Power Fist. Blood flew in gobs across his face, slicking his wild hair and absolutely ruining the front of his thin leather armor. It was definitely a sight to behold. Only thing was, Jayne couldn't really decide if it was stunningly magnificent or terrifying beyond all reason.
Probably a strange mixture of both.
When he'd finished, Dian drug the sleeve of his shirt against his face, only succeeding in smearing the red mess there, and grinned wider.
"Hell yeah! Punching Deathclaws makes a man feel ALIVE!" He knelt down, drew out a combat knife, and made short work of the dead creature's wrist, removing one of its massive hands and stowing it away in his pack. Jayne didn't question this. Honestly, he didn't even want to know.
Dian turned his grin towards the ginger, strode over, and thrust a bloodied hand towards the man on the ground. Jayne took it, albeit hesitantly, and allowed the dark haired man to help him up. He pulled a wad of fabric from his own pack and pressed it to his nose, then gave Dian a long, hard look. Finally he sighed, wiped at his nose one last time, and started to walk away. After a few steps he turned and gave his new companion a questioning look.
"Well, are you coming or not?" He grumbled.
The joy emanating from the other man was tangible.