RP:A Huddle of Hobos

Background

This is part of the Kurgan's Run story arc.

The drifter Amadeo is the next of our intrepid adventurers to find the ghosts of his past have come back to haunt him.

Meanwhile, In a Pocket of Absolute Chaos

Amadeo skidded to a halt in the middle of a desolate hallway, spinning in confusion, eyes frantically glancing up and down the corridor. All in vain. How could she have possibly lost him? And Cornelius, he was gone too. Mahri couldn't have been more than a couple of yards ahead of him when he'd torn off after her, and the fop himself had only been surpassed in equal measure- yet here he was, clutching his makeshift bludgeon more tightly around the middle, and totally alone. As he squinted his narrowed eyes to peer down the direction he'd been running, a slight chill ran down the length of his spine. He was precisely where he didn't want to be, alone, inside an immeasurably vast fortress, lost like a mouse in the labyrinth, and moreover, having failed to reach Mahri. "Ha!" he roared down the hall, his suspicions rising even as he roared back at himself in a series of fading echoes. "What's the big idea!?" He had no intention of moving from this spot without a better idea of what was happening.

“Idea… idea….” The word bounced back to him faintly, from a distance, though he was closed in on both sides by walls, and should he back up from the eerie echo, he’d find one behind him as well. The only way out was forward, it seemed, but the passage grew suddenly very dark, inky dark, and there was some sort of clutter in the way of his feet. “Ha!” The sudden exclamation, more a bark than a laugh, was probably startling. “C’mon, boy,” the voice, gravelly and amused, “Almost suppertime…” The lonesome strains of a harmonica quavered through the blackness, and with them rose the flicker of an open fire, the smell of smoke and meat roasting.

Amadeo did, in fact, back up, and he verily yelped in alarm to find his elbow making contact with a surface that hadn't...been there before...had it? He shot the wall a suspicious glance, swinging out the sole of his foot to give it a flat kick. Solid. And then he heard that voice, multiplying the already growing sense of weirdness this place was giving him. His thick eyebrows furrowed, one pushing down the other as he turned to face the source of the sound, the only way, incidentally, that would allow any progress. Still tightly gripping the middle of his wooden club, he would tread forward furtively, drawn but not entirely comforted by the familiar smells and sounds that were unfolding around him. Simply put, familiarity had no business here.

The harmonica wailed on, louder as he approached, and in the firelight he'd make out a grizzled face, a crooked hat tilted sharply down over the bridge of a broken nose, a seven-day beard and a black suit that had seen better days at the knees. The music stopped, and a face tilted up to peer at Amadeo from under the hat's brim; the eyes seemed alive with fire too, the reflections of the flames. "Siddown, kid. Make a man feel uncomfortable..." The club hadn't seemed to faze the man at all. He turned back to the fire, poking a skewered carcass that might have been a rabbit - if rabbits ever owned a long, skinny tail. Beside him was a bottle, half full of some brownish liquor, and a tobacco tin. "Was thinkin' y'weren't comin' round no more," he added, lifting the skewer to his lips. A bite was taken, gingerly and with a wince, from the rib portion of the feast, chewed mouth-open and swallowed. "Damn, that's hot. Sit the hell down, willya?"

Amadeo stopped in his tracks, peering at the old man incredulously. The frequency with which he glanced behind himself was gradually increasing, as though he expected the source of these illusions to jump out and reveal themselves any minute. Still, he actually was hungry, and as always, it seemed to him that playing along was usually a decent choice until a real threat presented itself. His squinted gaze still fixed on the rumpled hobo and he slung his bludgeon over one shoulder, unwilling to release it, but he did, at length, squat down across from the fire. Fingers idly rising to scratch under his devil-may-care beard, he glanced at the roasting meat extended from the old man's skewer and mustered up the gumption to speak, "Yea, well...I didn't know where you were, did I?" His tone, however stifled by estrangement, did not totally conceal his familiarity with the drifter. He shifted uncomfortably, glancing sideways, "Oi, Winston. You got anymore?"

The man's chapped lips spread into a grin. His teeth were in surprisingly good shape, considering his chosen lifestyle. "More what, son? I got ya more... meat." The skewer was handed over with a flourish, the tail falling off the carcass as he did so, so it landed with a greasy plop on Amadeo's foot. "I gotcha some.. more.. whiskey." He plucked the bottle up, raised it salut, drank and did not hand it over. "More tabbacy. More moonlight. Some damn good... fire, right there..." His suit looked pinched, around the armpits. "Ever-thin' a feller could want or need, 'cept for a woman." His eyes, shadowy under the hat, slid a glance to the lycan. "Y'ever had a woman yet, kiddo?"

Amadeo grinned sheepishly, lowering his eyes as he picked up the skewer and lifted it to his waiting mouth. "Sure I have, you old bastard," he lied before tearing out a chunk of the roasted carcass, sparing little regard for the mess it would leave in his wiry facial hair. "In fact, I was just looking for one just now." He nodded excitedly, voraciously ripping out another chunk of meat. With a mouthful of the stuff, he continued to explain his situation, "Til you showed up, that is. Hey..." he trailed off. They were in some kind of a forest, weren't they? What happened to that castle thing? It was a bit surreal. He pulled down the mouthful with a throat-widening swallow, then peered at Winston under a lofted brow, "Who starts a fire in the middle of a hallway? Say, where the hell are we?"

Winston.. not his real name, but it had a ring to it... sucked another swallow from his bottle and set it down between himself and the ‘kid’, his nicotine-stained fingers wriggling as he hitched up his sleeve like a street magician. “I ever tell ya ‘bout a girl I knew, name o’Maisie? Man, she had a mouth on her. Could suck a goose egg through a … “ with another shaky flourish, he reached to Amadeo’s ear and appeared to pull out a rolled cigarette. “… well, y’get the idea. Anyhow, y’need t’find yerself a woman. Just make sure she’s loose. You don’t want no clingin’ vine, son. Like a strangler vine, kill y’dead afore yer time. Just a nice floozy, that’d be…” he lit the smoke by poking it into the fire. “What’re ye sayin’? What kinda question’s that, kid? Your eyes ain’t workin.. somethin…” he trailed off, dragged on the cigarette, and with it still clamped between his fingers pointed off into the dark. “We’re on the road is where we are. Like a band of gypsies..” he started humming, as the fire roared to life and Amadeo would make out in the flare’s cast light a wall-less space, set by the verge of a road, and a road he knew, somehow. In the center of it, tipped sideways in a wagon-wheel rut, was a wooden dog, a toy, the kind with a string and wheels, one wheel slowly spinning.

Amadeo was half paying attention to the old man, his heavily lidded gaze wavering distractedly over the toppled, wooden plaything. A bit of meat hung off the side of his beard but fell to the dirt as he brought his hand up to scratch his jaw. "This one's a killer. Playing at 'hard to get'..." he was mumbling, maybe more to himself than to the vagabond, "was running after her in some..." The idea of it became hazier as he perused his own memory. "then you..." He glanced back at the would-be Winston, but suddenly experienced a change of mind. He was unable to repress his smile at the nostalgic sight, the man's gaunt cheeks, the disheveled hair that poked out in tufts from under his oddly slanted hat. He shifted on his feet and plopped backwards, landing on his elbows with a light thud and laying back where he could stare up at the stars. "Like a band of gypsies," he repeated, a dreamy quality assuming his youthful voice. The wooden bludgeon slipped out of his fingers and fell to the dirt as he called over, using the newly freed hand to point out the bottle which Winston nursed, "Share the wealth, man."

The bottle, in truth, had only sat between them for the space of a drag on that smoke before Winston had taken it up again, staring at the label like he reading a letter from an old lover, his mouth pulled into a fond and crooked smile. "Whiskey don't play hard t'get, kiddo. Well..." the grin grew wider. "... not all the time." The vessel was flung out, his fingers still wrapped around the neck. "I remember you tellin' me this one time... how y'grew up 'round these parts. Wild child, kinda.. thing. Weren't much better'n that when I met ya. Dirty as a Kelay whore's underthings. Five kinds of stink. Y'know it's bad when a god.. damn... Winston... tells ya to take a bath." he chuckled, a sound like gravel falling down a drain, which progressed to a lung-wracking cough, and another laugh, and so on, until Amadeo gave that bottle back. "I ever tell ya, how one time I met up with your momma, kid?"

Amadeo scrambled to his hands and knees, leaning forward to roughly snatch the bottle out of the vagabond's grasp. Taking a gluttonous pull of its contents, he'd rise to his feet with a vigorous bounce before swinging the handle down to his side. The liquor burned its way down and he screwed up his face with masochistic pleasure, cooing between throat-clearing coughs, "God damn that hits the spot!" Wiping off his mouth and the surrounding beard with the back of his wrist, he extended the bottle back toward Winston, staring off sidelong into the surrounding thickness of forestation. "Sure I did, and I'm surprised you could smell me at all over the stench of your own effin' brand." Amadeo was charged with a renewed energy, having forgotten his former disposition in the throes of this personal comfort. He paced back and forth beside the fire. A mercurial type to begin with, he felt no impulse to deny the convenience of his setting, but did stop short, for a moment, at the mention of his mother. He jerked to face the old man, eyeballing him expectantly, "No, you never told me that."

Winston nodded, the tag end of his smoke stuck between his lips as square-ended, splayed fingers patted his jacket pockets down, obviously in search of something. "Real nice lady, too. Dressed fine, you know, like a town woman... skirts and a fur stole.. said she was lookin' for her kid, did a runner." His lower lips jutted out, allowing the cold cig-butt to drop, while eyes that were still ashine with coal-lights turned on Amadeo. "'Bout broke her heart in two, she said."

Amadeo found a rock to kick, hard, into the trees. He scoffed aloud, lips peeled back into a sneer as he waved the story away. "Load of garbage if I've ever heard one!" He was patently riled, his shoulders bobbing as he began to shadow box for a moment. "What makes you think that's MY ma, you old codger?" The lycan couldn't seem to stop moving around as he ruminated on the idea with considerable ire. He kicked another stone into the woods. "MY ma wouldn't have been looking for me, sure as hell weren't broken hearted from the loss either! HA!" He roared his customary bark of laughter, that forced and belligerent guffaw more indicative of indignation than actual humor. Turning to glare at the vagabond, he spat, "I've had enough of your stupid stories, eh!" And ambling back to the fire pit, he resignedly plopped down to sit beside it, nervously gnawing on the back of his knuckle. "Just pass the bottle."

Winston did not pass the bottle. He was still patting down his ruin of a suit. “Here … somewheres… just gotta recall.. ah!” Plucked from some space on the inside of jacket, a hand-knitted cap. That, instead, was flipped to Amadeo. “Said to give y’that, said it’d remind you of y’ momma and daddy, and maybe you’d come home. Yeah.. she was real nice… town woman…silk stockin’s and a heel on her shoe.” He found the bottle, held it close to his chest. “… ‘bout broke her heart, kid, takin’ off like that.”

Amadeo shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was becoming unnerved, the lines of his face pulling tighter into a scowl as Winston continued unabashed. Against his stubborn nature, he would look up to appraise the cap, a child's garment that struck a cord in his memories. "What..." he began to inquire, but lost his train of thought as the vagabond continued to describe this allegation of his mother. Amadeo's lips drew back, teeth visibly clenched, frustration seeping into the vibrant brown of his eyes. And then he snapped. "Taking off!" he spat the words with undisguised contempt, leaping to his feet in a violent upheaval. "Taking off!" again he echoed the blasphemous words. "I told you to shut your god damned mouth, you son of a bitch! What are you getting at, huh?!" He'd stoop over for a moment to snatch his wooden club off the ground, holding it around the middle as he bore a hateful stare into the old man's eyes, "Weren't my mother and you'll forget all about it or I've got nothing more to say to you, dig?" His voice, so previously light-hearted, now rumbled with a warning of dark hostility.

"Don’t get all bunched in the pants, kid. Just passin' a message on...." The older man appeared completely unaffected by Amadeo's threats, swigging from his bottle in between words. "Shame.. nice lookin' lady... lipstick and her hair in a net." His grin widened, but only toward the fire, so the glow of it reflected red off his large teeth. "Don't ask me how a woman fine as that one ever wound up out here, all alone. I'da taken her hand, kid. I'da asked her for a dance. Pig askin' an angel for a date. Some women, you just gotta let alone, though." He winked. "An' if you're lucky..." His grin took a salacious cast. ".. sometimes they’ll come creepin' back."

Amadeo 's eyes widened into perfectly round circles, his face construed into a gruesome mask of fury as he registered the vile implication in Winston's words. At that point, his mind went black. As though through its own volition, his arm pulled back, the bicep tightening and releasing a murderous force that brought his makeshift club swinging business-end into the vagabond's face. Gnarled wood connected with bone in a sickening crunch, and his old friend's jaw was resoundingly disconnected from his skull, only to be held in place by the slackening muscle and flesh which had not totally come asunder. Amadeo followed through to the bitter brunt of that blow, and his breathing intensified to a labored pant even as he stared down at the annihilated figure of the old man. It'd be moments later before he even realized what had happened.

Amadeo stood entranced in the silence of the forest, the sound of his own winded breathing the only thing to compete with the subtle lick and crack of the fire they'd shared. They'd shared it, he and Winston. Winston, his best of friends, who now sat exactly as he had before, except that now his head was jerked back a bit too far for the allowance of human proportion and there may have been a hint of blood threatening to trickle down the side of his open mouth. He looked like he was laughing, oddly, with his head thrown back and his jaw slantedly hanging ajar. It was a wonder that he even remained upright. "Shite..." Amadeo whispered, dropping the murder weapon to the dirt. "Shite...shite..." he repeated, a note of panic creeping into his voice. In this case, he'd opt to go with his first instinct: run away. And he did. Think about it later.