AUGUST 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

[sodder]

AUGUST 2019 TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to August's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: DYSTOPIAN HORROR.

All Test Drive Memes contain at least one clue to the Deerington's upcoming in-game events for the month! Keep your eyes peeled! But...not literally.

Characters may die during TDMs, but you do not need to count it towards a game-canonical death unless you want to. Consider it a freebie. All TDMs can be considered game canon as TDMs introduce minor aspects about the world of Deerington that can be revisited by characters later on in the game. You may also use TDMs for your application writing sample as well as AC.

CW: Physical violence, monster violence, creepy ogre-like monster in link, being hunted by a monster.
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

BLOOD IN MY VEINS

With supplies low and food getting even more scarce, things in Deerington, Maine seem to be getting that much more tense. For those who pay attention to the habits of the townspeople, there’s something that might add to that feeling of stress; all of them seem to be involved in some kind of physical training, whether it’s archery, hand-to-hand combat, or fighting with firearms, they all seem like they’re getting ready for something and it definitely feels like it might be something big.

But no one wants to train against a townsperson - it’s highly likely they’re not going to fight fair with the way they’re all glaring at the Sleepers, as though they’re to blame for everything that’s been going on. Unless you’re sparring with people in your own backyard though, it seems like there isn’t any space to get your own training in.

The Betties are starting to pop up around town pretty regularly, waiting until they find Sleepers on their own, and quietly waving for them to come closer. “You need to prepare,” they’ll whisper to you in hushed urgency, before grabbing your hand to try and get you to follow them. If you fight, they’ll insist only once more, before leaving you alone. But there’s something inside of you urging you to comply and follow.

They’ll lead you down an alley, pushing aside a large dumpster, and revealing a trap door in the middle of the concrete. You’ve never noticed it before, even if you’ve been down this alley a hundred times. The Betty leading you leans down, pulling it open, and the ladder that goes into the tunnel is long and dimly lit. You could leave now, but the Betty will insist this is for the best.

“Knock twice. No more or less. Show them what you’re made of.”

Once you get to the bottom of the ladder, there’s an equally long hallway that leads towards a closed metal door. You knock twice and the door shakes before sliding open. The light that comes through is almost blinding with how bright it is compared to the dim tunnel, but as your eyes adjust, you can finally step in to a fully stocked training room.

There are instructors in basics for beginners, areas for intermediate, and most abundantly there are one-on-one sparring areas. The moment you come close enough, you’ll be immediately paired with another Sleeper, and the two of you will be locked in the room together to be observed. You could choose to not fight, of course, but you’ll be stuck there for a good long while if you do. It might be best to just get it over and done with.

So feel free to help others who seem to be struggling or show off your strength for everyone to see. It looks like everyone is going to need to be ready for some kind of fight.

I AM THE GREAT UNKNOWN

Maybe you got knocked out during a fight or maybe you fell asleep in your own bed - or maybe you don’t even remember closing your eyes at all, especially if you don’t usually have the ability to go unconscious for one reason or another. No matter the cause, everyone will wake up in the same place, surrounded by tall, thick hedges in the middle of a... maze?

It doesn’t take you long to realize you aren’t the only one waking up, too. Someone is next to you and it seems like you’re stuck finding your way out of here together. Literally. On each of your wrists is a metal cuff with a long chain connecting them. It can’t be broken, no matter how strong a person is or how powerful a weapon or spell they try to use against it. You’re in this together whether you want to be or not.

Once you can pick a direction to head in, it seems like this might almost be boring - that is until you start to hear the sounds of rustling leaves and breaking twigs. At first it seems like it might just be a trick to spook you, but the more you ignore it, the louder it gets, until finally you see it, charging down the row at you, scythe raised and ready to strike.

You can try to fight, of course, but it’s hard when you’re chained to one another. Learn to work together quickly and maybe you can make it work. It seems to go down with normal attacks, though it takes a long time to get the creature to fall unless you cut off the head. Ultimately your best interest might be set in running as fast as you can to get away. You can lose it in the maze if you’re quick about it. But then you might also be lost yourself.

If you do manage to lose the monster rather than killing it, stay quiet and you might not attract its attention again. It may take a while to find the end of the maze. The hedges feel like they stretch on forever and the sun is blaring down. You’d think there would be shade with all the height of the bushes, but there’s no relief from the heat. Hopefully you don’t burn easy.

When you get to the end of the maze, the two of you will come up on three doors. One door will lead out of the maze and back into the center of Deerington, cuff free. Another door will lead you right back to the beginning, forcing you to start again. And what’s behind door number three...?

The monster, of course.

Choose wisely.

Character Arrival

You can read how all characters arrive in Deerington here.

There is not a collective "all these characters showed up at the exact same moment" occurrence in Deerington. Since characters fall asleep, die, or pass out at various times throughout all their worlds, it wouldn't make too much sense if they arrived in game all at the exact same time. There should be some discrepancy between character arrival, whether by a couple minutes, hours, or even days up to a week.

The players are entirely in control of how/when they want to play their characters arriving in Deerington. For TDMs, you can play it like your character has just arrived and that can be maintained as your game canon, or you can wait until game events for that moment. Or you don't need to acknowledge it at all. The flexibility for character allows a bit more of an organic feel to the character arrival situation, so please play it to whatever feels right for you.

If you are interested in having an "arrival" introduction for one of your TDM prompts, you are more than welcome to explore that option.

Comments

[howlett]

[Logan yanks back just enough to make the point known that he won't be rushed. Even if it's a point he should probably get on board with.]

Quit fuckin'— [And then he smells it. And hears it. And sees the bows bend as something down this corridor tries to pull itself through the thicket. Something uglier than Wade.] The fuck is that...

All right, all right, I get it. I get you. [It's not an apology but at least they're on the same page now. His claws come out with a snikt and he wastes no time going for the chain that connects them. It'll just be easier if they've got all their hands.]

[He pulls it taught between the and swings at it. But all he gets are sparks.] What fresh hell is this... OK. Fuck it. Move.

[wwrench]

He isn't expecting as good as he gets from the man at the other end of that chain. Wrench finds his wrist ripped from him, and e stumbles a few paces to compensate for the pick-up in slack. However he managed to make it out of the woods the second time, it sure as shit wasn't so he could die bound to some stubborn personification of a fucking anchor. Whatever the hell is at the other end seems to have found them now, and he doesn't have the patience to make this man understand they may well die if he can't find the inspiration to get the hell up. Wrench clasps at the shackle around his wrist and tries to force it down and over his palm. No use. It seems molded to fit.

Thank god the human honey badger finally finds his feet. Wrench is prepared to bolt when he feels the slack between them taken up again, and turns his head in time to see the sparks fleck off the chain. There's no time to rationalize what he's seeing or wonder were the man came by so many knives or how he's kept them concealed. With the two of them finally on their feet, he bolts toward the end of the hedge, where the path branches at two right angles. Wrench doesn't slow as he rounds toward the right.

[howlett]

Of fight and flight, the latter is not his choice. But he'll make some allowances for situations like waking up handcuffed to a stranger and pursued by something that smells like a corpse. At least until they've got enough ground to reassess the situation and make a worthwhile stand.

At the intersection the chain between them goes taut again and Logan's boots dig into the ground. "Left!" He barks impatiently and hauls on his involuntarily conjoined-twin. "Always turn left!"

[wwrench]

The ground that Wrench gives up when he's jerked off kilter is claimed in one long stride. Right! He gestures down his chosen path. It's a lesson burned into his memory: the smug expression on his childhood friend's face, his unflappable self-confidence. Even when he was plainly wrong, he'd asserted it with such audacity. Make right turns. Do the right thing. Wrench's mind can't fathom the both of them could be correct. All he knows is that if they want to have a prayer of outrunning this thing, they've got to head the direction he's insisting, and they have to do it...

Now! he stamps his foot. Those ruby-red eyes have them in sight now, and the form of skin stretched over bone is moving at more than a shuffle.

[howlett]

That full-body retort is an odd counterpoint in this unexpected argument. Clear in its intention. But nonetheless bewildering. It is that very same element of surprise that puts Logan at a loss here. For the moment he can't think of a way to argue for something that has been stated but not reasoned. At least, not without turning this into a battle of wills they don't have time for.

Logan throws up his hands and shoves the other half of this three-armed race in the direction he is insisting. “Fine! Go! I swear to whatever circle of hell that thing crawled out of I will feed you to it myself if you take us somewhere worse.”

[wwrench]

He doesn't need further invitation. At the first sign of the man's compliance, Wrench tears down the righthand path. Met with the next slope in the hedges, he does the same. But following the uniform pattern will eventually make its shortcoming apparent: the trick only works with the understanding that a subject will eventually double back on their own path to correct any error in wayfinding. It's a fantastic strategy when the singular aim is to find one's way from start to end, but it loses something to the nuance of trying to escape a rotting guardian of hell.

The maze might be a couple of acres, or several hundred miles. From this vantage point either seems likely. Backed into a corner and watching its approach, Wrench can think of little to do but rush it. Maybe with the length of a chain between them, they can turn this into a sadistic game of Red Rover. Topple the thing at the ankles. He swats at his partner and mimes pulling the chain tight.

[howlett]

Right or left Logan might have fought harder for his own plan and if he was not already considering the way a little hedge trimming would surely expedite this entire ordeal. It’s an idea that looking more and more applying when they turn into another dead end.

“Right. Nice plan,” he grumbles for the sake of grumbling and the claws snikt out again, raking a chunk out of the well groomed hedge walls. “No, no more rights and lefts and fun house bullshit—” he starts in when this stranger is pantomiming at him again, but stops himself when he smells it. Not so close as before. But not as far as he’d like either. Logan goes still and holds a finger to his lips finally paying attention enough to understand what his counterpart is saying.

Clothes-line it. He nods. They’ll have to get the jump on it though. And maybe they can if he can sniff it out before it hones in on them. He taps his nose and points in the direction he’s positive it’s coming.

[wwrench]

The second time around there's no mistaking it. Wrench is watching now, and he sees those blades part the skin between the man's knuckles. It seems like a foolish thing to stop him in his tracks, given their present situation. He can't even remember falling asleep, and here he's woken up in the middle of a hedge maze, chained to a man he's never seen in his life and pursued by an axe-wielding monstrosity? Freddy Krueger blades hardly seem the anachronism. Wrench is the anachronism. What he wouldn't give to wake the hell up.

And jesus, even in this fever dream he's being shushed by a stranger. He doesn't want to imagine what that illuminates about his own psyche. Automatically, he nods his head and tries to slow his breathing. Resume a posture of control, bring himself back around to neutrality. If they can't outrun this, they're going to have to outthink it. He's been in worse situations than facing a freak in a loincloth with an archaic weapon. Stranger ones, perhaps not, but certainly worse.

What's that? He frowns at the man and shakes his head a fraction. Wrench mimics the point and cranes his neck, but the hedges give up nothing this time. He shakes some amount of anxiety from his shoulders and exhales to steady himself, the breath passing through his lips louder than either of them might like.

[howlett]

Mute? Deaf? Alien language? All of the above? What? In a more civil introduction he’d like to think he’d have this guy figured out by now. It doesn’t leave him with the greatest confidence in their coordinated effort that he can’t be sure this guy understands his intention.

It’s not until he heaves a sigh that Logan makes up his mind. Deaf. It’s gotta be deaf.

Hauling the blond by his coat, Logan stretches his palm across the younger man’s face insisting his silence just for a moment. Until he can hear the things own laboured breathing and snuffling somewhere beyond the wall ahead of them. Making it’s way around. Circling in on them.

He wracks his brain a moment and tries again, this time making a wafting gesture in front of his face instead of pointing. Tracking it’s slow movement with two fingers as if to mimic his gaze he holds their chain to silence it and ushers into another alcove and grabs a rock off the ground.

Hunkering down in to the ground he drags his finger in the sand to write:

Behind it.

He readies himself for its appearance— facing forward and ready to run before tossing that rock into the hedge opposite their dead end.

[wwrench]

Maybe if he'd met this man under a different set of circumstances, Wrench wouldn't be inclined to allow him to give instruction with such physicality. Maybe he'd even kill him, or maybe the man with the blades in his hands would be taking a run at Wrench. But something about being bound to another person and pursued by a third draws the lines of allyship pretty definitively. If they make it out of this, then he can think about teaching the stocky stranger better than shushing him manually. For now, he takes the firm suggestion and holds his breath.

The second time around, the gesture is apparent. He might be less inclined to believe it, but with the slack of their bindings taken up between them Wrench can't help but note the flare in the man's nostrils and the way he picks up his head toward the faint current of air. It's all painted in too brilliant detail now to be a dream, but if this is hell he thinks he'd prefer the burning.

Maybe it's a parable on cooperation. It sours Wrench to think the afterlife is instead some test of mores off a kindergarten rules chart. Share and work together, help your neighbor... Is this what he has to master before they'll let him rest? He gives his partner an understanding nod and tries to balance urgency with stealth as they scramble into the next hedge and crouch low. At least it's a plan, and a better one than arguing the strategy of a maze whose dimensions they don't even know. Wrench steadies himself for the way that thing scrambles at the diversion, then puts his boots to the ground and runs like hell to rush it from behind with the length of impenetrable chain clacking between them.

[howlett]

It's at least as hideous up close as his imagination already painted it. Still. Better to get their hands dirty on their own terms then wait and see whatever this thing had in mind for them.

When it scrambles around the corner searching for the source of that noise, they waste no time closing in behind it, hoisting the chain between their wrists over it's gnarled horns and whatever skin or carcass it wears on its head.

There's more mass to the stout legged thing then it appears, but between the two of them their weight is nothing to be shrugged off. Abandoning it’s weapon to paw at the chain around its neck is almost enough to make him think they’ve got this when it finds enough wits to swing blindly for it’s captors instead.

“Tighter!” He growls when those jagged talons raze his arm. Tit for tat, his own claws are better. He pushes it into the chains with a boot in it’s back and severs it at the forearm with his free hand.

[wwrench]

Well, the thing is corporeal. Shit. Maybe he'd been holding out hope that engaging it would penetrate the fantasy and scatter the eerie projection into flecks of hologram, but no such luck. It's just as well, Wrench supposes. He wouldn't know how to beat what he can't hit. But the thing strikes back somehow with more venom than he'd credited it with. Wrench dodges the flailing arm, but somehow it gets him even without contact him. He feels a white-hot burn of tearing flesh and moans in shock and pain as his forearm splits almost of its own volition.

He almost stumbles when the man's boot helps the thing into the length of chain, but Wrench shakes off the pain and bears backwards, forcing the counterweight to keep it in a chokehold. This seems too familiar. Even in the midst of the chaos he can't shake the feeling of déjà vu for the circumstances that brought him here in the first place. Is that what this is, he wonders? Is he doomed to live it over in decreasing rates of probability for the rest of his life? Or is he supposed to do something differently this time? Wrench heaves backward as the creature is forced forward and the heavy breaths in his chest mingle with wordless snarls on their way out of him.

cw: gore, gore, gore.

[howlett]

It’s easy to forget the new tricks of his physiology. Especially when there are more pressing matters than explaining to those around him why he’s all kinds of weird.

It flails it’s only good arm behind it again, raking at them without any line of sight and Logan begins to wonder whether this thing even needs air.

“Enough of this shit…” he growls when his boot can force it forward hard enough. “Pull up!” he knows his words aren’t getting through, but he hopes the action does, when he changes the angle from which he’s hauling those changes against it. Trying instead to catch it under the jaw, baring its sinewy neck. There’s a snikt. And a swing. And its head hits the ground with the hallow sort of thud a fresh pumpkin might make.

The sudden lack of force fighting against their own is enough to leave them staging forward.

"Jesus. Everything around here is disgusting."

CW: blood, decapitation

[wwrench]

Surely the thing ought to be getting weaker. Wrench can feel his own muscles straining with the effort. They've got it in a chokehold, but it hasn't for a second stopped its mad flailing. The arm is easy to avoid, but he doesn't know how long they can sustain this position if the thing refuses to die. They're going to have to figure something out. The dropped scythe is near enough to them Wrench thinks he can make a swipe for it, but there's no move he can easily take with the other man still chained to the end of his wrist. If one of them moves opposite, the other will have to follow suit. And it's the other man that does so first, forcing the give in the chain in a different direction.

Wrench bears upward, and the links catch the thing under its jaw. He's taller than the man he's attached to. Taller than this thing, too, by more than a head. He could almost bring it off its feet, he thinks. Already he can feel it scrambling under the new distribution of its weight. Its muscles are straining, and with a little effort he could reach...

A wild spray of blood catches Wrench in the face, and instantly all resistance is gone. He flinches at the splatter and raises both hands in surprise, tumbling forward until he catches himself against the wet sod beneath them. Gasping for his own breath, Wrench raises an arm to swipe over his face. He braces his hands on the ground again to push back to his feet. The toe of his boot connects with something solid, and when Wrench looks down he sees the head of the thing, red eyes open, mouth agape, staring lifelessly up at him. It pulls a disgusted groan from him, but he grabs the scythe before putting as much space as he can between himself and the corpse.

With a nudge to the other man, Wrench rattles their binding and holds the weapon up demonstratively. Maybe this is what they were supposed to get. Maybe it's the ticket out of this fucking mess.

cw: less blood. still a headless monster.

[howlett]

It's not until his claws go away that he realizes he forgot again. He wears an awkward grimace as he looks at the blood trickling from the other man's knuckles. It's like a reflex. How is he supposed to keep from using the tools inside his own hands? It's like telling a dog not to use its teeth.

“Sorry. About that.” He draws a circle over his chest with a closed fist. It's probably too small a gesture to matter, but at least there's a word he remembers in sign language. If that’s what this guy needs.

Now that time is on their side he can afford to be a little bit curious, and in this place answers feel like the kind of thing you really have to go digging for. He's turning over the head of that creature with his boot to get a better look at it, when their shared chain, and the wrist attached to it, jangle his arm for attention. With his eyebrows raised, he gives the younger man a shrug. He doesn't suspect that scythe can cut through what his claws couldn’t. But it wouldn't be the first time this place has surprised him.

He holds up their chain, taut, with both hands. “Give it a go, Midnight Cowboy.”

[wwrench]

Wrench regards the blood between his knuckles with confusion. He hadn't noticed it before, but now that he finds it there he's swept with the immediate sensation of something sharp piercing his skin. It's not so far from the feeling of having his flesh opened up by the fingers of the creature that had attacked them, but neither injury sit well with him. They're clearly painful. The ache is as real as the thorn flesh and pooling stains of crimson, but he'd swear they both sprouted from nowhere. Certainly they don't seem like anything worth the other man's apologies. Wrench considers him for a moment, wary but curious. From what he can tell, the other man doesn't appear to have a scratch on him.

Not your fault. The chain clatters with his movement, and as he drags one hand toward his own chest to depress his fingers into his shoulder, the other man's hand is forced to follow suit. Wrench continues to stare as if waiting for any sign of realization or familiarity, but finds himself unsurprised when none appears to come.

Maybe it's foolish to think the scythe could be the answer to whatever puzzle this is, but nothing else has made sense thus far. If there's something he's supposed to prove to himself or to some higher power, Wrench reasons that he might be too lost or too hopeless to figure it out. If the man at his side is supposed to be a clue to it all, he's not sure what he can provide him bound at his side. He takes the scythe in his off hand and brings it down towards the links held tight, but the blade isn't intended for the kind of leverage he can find against their chain. Wrench huffs his frustration and tries again, but it's as dissatisfying as it is unimpactful. He pitches it to the ground and levels a scowl back at the man.

Where are we? Do you know? Well... that's worth a try too, he supposes.

[howlett]

Scratching at his head with an apologetic squint he doesn’t quite know what the other fellow said, but the dismissiveness of the gesture makes him think he could guess. “Sorry kid, I dunno what that one means.”

“Where? Is that what that is? Where are we? Fucked if I know,” he throws up his hands with a shrug.

When the scythe does nothing to solve their chain predicament Logan grumbles and stomps it like he’s busting up kindling. “Just in case there’s more than one of those things in here. I don’t wanna give’s any help.” He doesn’t suppose much of what he says has any impact on the other man, but it doesn’t feel right to just stay tight lipped about it either. “Hey, that’s a word I think I know. Help. Right? Like that…” He puts the heel of one hand in the palm of the other before realizing he’s probably just confusing things. “Ah, never mind. C’mon. Your idea. Rights. Right? We got all the time in the world for that now.”

Stay right

He scratches it in the sand with the broken handle of that weapon and nods them on ward.

[wwrench]

Yes! Wrench knocks a heavy fist in the air, and the chains that bind them give an agreeable little clink of acknowledgement. Victories have been precious few for the man lately, not just in the context of this strange place, but well before it too. He's better as part of a unit. All this isolation isn't good for his psyche. And maybe the stranger on the other end of the chain isn't the type of compatriot he's typically known, but if the surest way of determining your friends is by your mutual enemies, this is a good start.

When the shorter man taps his fist into his open palm, Wrench's eyebrows raise almost comically. Help, he parrots back with another exaggerated nod. He can help, of course. He scans the area for some sign of what's being asked of him. What role he can play in the destruction, or the uncertain path ahead of them. But whether he's too slow on the uptake or the man simply changes his mind, Wrench is left to wonder.

And so they head right. He's more alert now, determined neither to be taken by surprise a second time nor to be seen as a liability. But the sun overhead is beating down and those rows of perfectly-manicured hedges go on and on. Eventually, curiosity gets the better of him and Wrench tugs at the chains that connect their wrists. When the other man looks up, he touches his fingers to the spaces between his knuckles. They're still raw, caked in blood from some injury he can't quite comprehend. Wrench catches the man at the wrist and rattles his hand demonstratively.

[howlett]

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry about that.” His fist passes in a circle around his chest again. He’ll probably getting a lot of use out of that one.

He should know a few more of these than he remembers, Logan thinks. Not that he could hold a conversation with any depth, but if indicative words, they were topics somewhere along the way. Some kind of special ops training. The type of program that prepared you for literally any circumstance. He can almost picture himself watching Maverick gesture at him silently from the far side of a doorway, but the time and place are completely lost on him. He racks his brain in an effort to remember. You, me, them, are all the pronouns just pointing?

And then one dawns on him.
Same.
That might even come in handy.

Same, he gestures between them, before he realizes what a broad statement that must sound like from the complete stranger cuffed to his wrist.

Logan drags that stick in the dirt again. Hurt? He looks at the stranger expectantly, but when the younger man brushes it off as though answering for his well-being, Logan shakes his head. “No, not the… no you. The word. How do you sign that?” He wiggles his fingers frivolously in the air and underlines the word in the dirt again.

It's not necessary supposes. This conversation doesn't need to happen. But god knows how long it'll take to find their way out of this place. There's worse things than getting stuck here with some guy who doesn’t speak, he thinks. He could've been stuck here with Wade.

[wwrench]

Of course it hurts, Wrench thinks, but it's far from the worst he's ever had. What is perhaps more concerning is the origin of the injuries. Both the slashes between his knuckles and the heavy raking on his forearm are from sources not easily explained or rationalized. He can feel the depth of the cuts and the way the bleeding has slowed to a trickle, but what's to come will remain a mystery. And with no source of water or bandages in sight, he can only wonder at how it'll progress over the coming hours and days. What kind of venom could a thing like that leave behind?

He could say all of it, and plenty more. Driven to more impatience he might feel inclined, but instead Wrench simply shrugs away the thoughts from his own mind. There was a time he worried more about it. When he was much younger, he felt the pull to prove his mind by any means possible. Now he just wonders how the other man must feel. It's infantilizing, he suspects, relying on a mixture of kindergarten vocabulary and everyone's least-favorite party game. But undoubtedly more so for the man at the other end of the chain, rather than for Wrench himself. After all, he's used to this. Hearing people don't often have to stretch to make themselves understood, and that lack of comprehension seems to rattle them in a way that's most damaging. It's a source of power for Wrench, though it's taken him plenty long enough to realize it.

It isn't always beneficial, of course. He has no interest in lording it over the other man, who seems to truly be trying his best to recall some bit of knowledge he might have known and forgotten, or could call up from a passing familiarity. Wrench's lips form into an O of understanding and he raises both index fingers, crooking them towards one another and twisting. It's a gesture that resembles the illustrated spikes on a comic illustration of injury, or maybe two knives twisting toward a source point. Hurt, he mouths helpfully. It's a start. A jumping off point, maybe.

He gestures to his hand again, and this time Wrench uses his fingers to imitate the blades emanating from the slashes of blood between his knuckles. What the fuck? he asks, middle finger and all. If that's not a universal gesture, what is?

[howlett]

It takes some back and forth. Signing and pointing and nodding at each other until they’re both certain they’re on the same page. hurt. He doesn’t think he never learned that one, but it makes a little sense to sign it. There’s something about that motion that feels like a good representation of pain.

The way this guy mimics the claws in his hands makes sense, but Logan makes the mistake of thinking he’s more interested in how they hurt him too, than some better understanding of the claws themselves.

Armed with two words and two solid pronouns. It might be enough to articulate the point he set out to make. What he can enlighten him about those shared injuries is limited but it might stand to make the younger man more careful if he can’t put any real distance been them.

“I hurt. You hurt. Same. ” He can’t help speaking when he signs it anyway. It’s clumsy but for some stupid reason it feels like it’s adding to their effort towards a shared understanding. “You get me? Anything that hurts me, hurts you the same.”

[wwrench]

The same of the matter seems most apparent. Maybe it's Wrench's fault for skipping so many steps in the pyramid of needs. He's trying to shape the best of what he has around some query of self-actualization when their safety isn't even assured. It's not a particularly solid foundation from which to start his building. At least this man seems to have a better concept of what's happening here. He's uncovered some formula for the source of their pain, though. None of it means anything about how he came by the claws in his hands, but neither does Wrench know how the creature they just beheaded had such red eyes or bladed fingers.

What's to distinguish one monster from another, save the hope that the one you're chained to means you no harm?

It's not a very fair question to ask. Thus far, the man next to him has amassed a body count of one. That's all that Wrench knows for sure, and his own list of sins certainly extends beyond that. He nods his understanding at the stranger and reminds himself instead to start over. Name? he asks, tapping two fingers on either hand together with an expectant look. A-B-C, you know?

[howlett]

His eyes followed the younger man's hands a few times but whatever he saying is lost on him. With no memory of that particular gesture, he instead hands this stranger his writing stick.

The only thing that cures Logan of his vacant expression is when they take it all the way back to the alphabet. Logan's eyes light up a little bit. “Oh yeah. Yeah yeah,” he nods repeatedly as it all comes back to him too quickly to know what to parse first, but eventually he’s staggering through the alphabet with his hands. It’s certainly not fast. It's not even all that accurate on the first go around as he stumbles over similar hand shapes that leave him squinting at his quiet companion for direction.

“Not great but. Give me some fuckin’ credit here. I feel like it's been at least 50 years.”

[wwrench]

Wrench watches the effort with all the patience of a saint, giving minor correction only when the man seems to hesitate like he knows he needs it. He's always thought pride to be the greatest barrier. At some point in living, people start to think they're done with learning. They get defensive about the things they don't know, and hesitate to give much effort to what they fear might make them look stupid in the interim. When the man makes it through without a hitch, he levels a thumbs-up for the good work. With the two of them chained together, bloodied, and looking in their own ways like brooding animals it could easily seem condescending. Wrench seems genuinely pleased, however.

It's a lot to work with after all. He points to himself, and for a second a sign stalls on his fingers. The moniker is easy for several reasons: it's a single sign, firstly. But more than that, it's a comfortable place to dress himself into. The persona he's worn for many years. Even with Fargo disbanded, his partner dead, and everyone who ever knew him lost to the wind, Wrench has held onto it as the power that carried him through. But it's been a long time since he's had reason to refer to himself as anything now.

Fingerspelling is the starting point, and it's the easiest way to demonstrate what he's asking. Wrench considers it and points to himself again before shaping slowly and intentionally: W-E-S. He points at the man then quizzically and signs again, Name?

[howlett]

Logan speaks the letters out loud when the other fellow spells them on his fingers. It takes him no small amount of time recall each hand shape and string them into a syllable. “Wes. Got it.”

A moment hangs between them as Logan realizes that wide eyed look is a question levied at him. He watches the sign again and it finally clicks. “Me? My name? This is name?” He repeats the sign knocking both pairs of fingers together on the perpendicular. “Jim. J-I…M,” he tries that again when the J and I feel clumsy one after the other, but eventually he gives up and scratches it into the dirt before they make another right.

“For fuck sake how big is this place….”