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Fill t'e figh' bits.; Fill the fight pits.
Topic Started: Dec 18 2016, 02:26 PM (58 Views)
TonyTheFish
Wastelander
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Dom had been staring at the poster for half an hour now. Pondering its many meanings, the implications of what it suggested and the many connotations of the content. The bold text, the artistic sketch, the nice smelling paper, it all came together to form the perfect bait for Dom's curiosity. Initially he had come over because of the crowd; they spoke in raised voices, cries of outrage, gasps and frowned mutterings. Dom had waded through them to get to the front, ignorant of the views he was blocking and shaking his head along with them in a ham-fisted attempt to fit in. The crowd had since dispersed, and the intensity of his stare was so strong that it discouraged others from joining him. The world washed by behind him like a time lapse, shapes and colours in his peripheral vision were all that registered to him. He was on a mission to understand, to learn what secrets the paper may hold that had raised so many ire's. Imagine the surprise then of a curious passer-by when she discovered he could not read.

"What do you mean you cannot read dear?" the incredibly old lady was exactly what Dom had expected of incredibly old ladies. Small, big glasses, mouldy looking clothes and she smelt of what he could only describe as old. She was brave though, Dom was not a small man; standing shirtless over 6ft tall with a bandaged head and muscles a super mutant would be proud of.

"Jus' ne'er learned it" Dom mumbled, his face flushing red under her incredulous expression. He got it into his head that she was angry with him for some reason, adopting a strange facial mixture of guilty and what he hoped was indifferent.

The lady frowned, gurning her mouth over a couple of times then hobbling forwards on her cane a little to get a good look at the poster. "This here poster boy is for the mayoral election, endorsing that Carson fella" Dom nodded along like he understood. "It says Vote Carson, and then at this bit at the bottom here it says Fill The Fight Pits" she smiled up at him warmly and patted his arm.

Dom thought for a second, a bandaged finger scratching his chin as his brain worked overtime. "So-" he squished up his face, his mouth going to one side as the words formed themselves. "-Carsum?-" the lady nodded at him, he opened one eye to see it, then closed it again. "-is going to be mayor, tha's the boss of BT, and he wants to fill t'e figh' bits?" looking at the lady to confirm, she nodded once then hurried off. He watched her leave with a smile, people here were so busy it was silly. Even Dom could appreciate the time she took to help him, even if he could not explain the understanding.

"Fill t'e figh' bits...hm...what are figh' bits I wonder" Dom of course, knew what a fight pit was, he just could not make the connection between the event and the words in this context. His brain was still in the boss part of his brain where it was trying to work out what the poster actually meant in regards to Carson. Dom felt weird now. He felt sad. He had felt like he belonged somewhere when he did not know what the sign meant, he had a job, a task that he had to complete and it gave him meaning. With his fingers on the mend and his head still throbbing there was little other than looking that he could do.

He kicked the dirt at his feet out of boredom, his boots cracking the dry earth a little. He followed it with another, harder kick, a layer of dust coming up and making him choke. Dom stumbled away, going to rub his eyes with his fingers and hitting the broken ones on his chin, he howled in pain. Rapping his knuckles on his own head with his other hand for being an idiot and hitting the wound there as well. He bent over forwards in pain, cradling his hand to his stomach with his other on his head and smacking his face on the wall, causing him to fall backwards crying. The dust on the ground burst out from under him as the full weight of his bulk hit the floor. People continued to walk past not looking, if they got involved it would mean time, it would mean caring about someone which was peculiarly avoided like the plague these days.

Dom stayed there for about ten minutes until a shadow fell across his face, the cooling moment making him open his eyes and look up into the face of a smirking boy. It was like looking into a mirror, the boy was a dead ringer for Dom himself when he was young. Minus the prepubescent muscle mass and bloodshot eyes. The boy seemed curious, he stood perfectly still with his head cocked, and Dom just looked up at him. They stayed like that for a minute, the boy opened his mouth and closed it a few times while he struggled to find something to say. Dom smiled every time he did it, his smile growing wider and wider, simultaneously ignoring all of the odd looks he was getting from the disapproving public. He cared little for opinions others had on him, people were mean and nice, generous and selfish. Whether someone was or was not did not matter to a person like Dom who did not judge anyone on being bad or nice. The way he saw it, to the bad people, the other bad people were nice, so just because he was not bad and did not see bad people as nice, does not mean that the bad people are bad people, just that as a nice person, he saw them as bad. It was a realisation Dom carried with him, just never ask him to explain it out loud.

"Mister, wotcha on the floor for?" the boy squinted, looking around and waving at someone out of Dom's view. He could hear cheering and laughing getting louder, faces turning, scowling and hurrying away in the opposite direction. Dom wondered if he was mocking him, but the boy looked genuinely confused, or what he thought was confusion, it might have been mocking. But either way, the boy was still there, and it would be rude not to provide an answer.

"My nose hurts" Dom stated matter-of-factly like it was meant to explain everything. He could not think of a better way to sum it up than that, his confusion only growing along with the boys as he got a blank state in response.

After a moment of thinking the boy practically spat out "My name is Tim. What's yours?" the question was demanding. This boy seemed all over the place, torn between not trusting strangers(born of the chance they are rapists, murders and/or both) and an insatiable curiosity (born of the fact he is a nosy little git).

"Dom. I used to have a friend called Tim, then he tried to kill me" Dom said, his head lolling back with his mouth gaping open. He was suddenly aware of how very thirsty he was, so very very thirsty.

This second awkward moment was broken by the arrival of a small mob of similarly aged children to the boy, the apparent source of the earlier commotion and target of his wave. They surrounded him, words exchanging between eachother and smiles all around, Dom was quite perplexed by the whole thing but nodding along like it was a normal situation that normal people found themselves in all the time. After much deliberating and arguing, they decided to help Dom up. Not that he really needed help, just because he had not gotten up did not mean that he could not, simply that he had not. And so when the kids huffed, puffed, groaned and yelled, it was less physically helping more for moral support on Dom's achievement of standing up.

The children stood back, gawping in awe at his colossal figure now they could fully gauge it. This went on for ten progressively uncomfortable seconds; Dom slowly feeling the inexplicable embarrassment or inappropriateness of being shirtless in front of a group of children. As if it were previously agreed, the group fell into a huddle, ducking in their heads and began what Dom only assumed was the start of hide and seek or some similar game. So he waited patiently for the rules to be explained, absently brushing the dirt from his back and trousers, while trying and failing miserably to pretend he was not listening in on their conversation.

Tentatively turning around after their meeting, they found Dom practically on top of them. Leaning heavily towards them while looking upwards, his lips pursed and blowing outwards sporadically in an attempt at nonchalant whistling. He suddenly realised they had stopped whispering, far too occupied trying to look casual to remember to actually listen to what they had been saying. Dom would have fallen over in surprise if they had not rushed him at that moment, pushing once again to keep him upright and stopping once he had his footing. They took a synchronised step backwards as if planned, then the yelling started as their system fell apart. With no apparent speaker elected, Dom was forced to slowly pick apart what the clamouring voices were trying to say. In that strange way that kids and Dom (on occasion) tended to do, they were each trying to fight the others with volume, this made things difficult to understand, but not impossible. Eventually separating each voice from the others, turning in a slow circle as he focused on each one with all of his perception.

"Hey do you want to like, hang out and stuff with us? I mean you don't have to if you don't want to but it would be nice 'n' stuff if you would do it cuz you seem pretty cool and strong and stuff. Do you go out into the wastes much? I bet you do, I bet you go out and kill loads of ghouls and stuff, not that I care much...but do you?" This was Henry, slick back black hair and various chains on his clothing, probably some kind of cool fashion trend in todays youth, such as it is. Dom did not understand how the boy could look interested, expressed in his excited voice and have a bored face simultaneously. As soon as Dom opened his mouth he realised the folly in fighting the volume, all he could do in his crowd-induced dazed state was nod in response. He did so love telling stories. He loved hearing stories as well, but part of the reason he travelled was so he could share his adventures.

"Sup dude, the name's Darryl." He had not taken his wide green eyes off of Dom's arms since he arrived. "How much can you lift? Could you lift a ghoul? Could you throw a ghoul? How far can you throw one? Or a Brahmin? Or, or a car? Could you throw a car? Or a house? I have a small house, could you lift it? What is the biggest thing you have ever killed something with, or like, the biggest thing you have killed with nothing but your strength?" Dom's head was swimming already, the concentration this took was hurting his limited brainpower and these rapid fire questions really tested him. Leaning down to the kid and hoping he remembered them all "Dunno, yes, yes, far, no, yes, no, no, maybe, a tractor wheel, a deathclaw." Ok, maybe that last one was just straight up crap. Born of panic, a desire to impress and a sudden urge to arm wrestle a deathclaw, however, the boy's face was priceless and so Dom did not have the heart to correct his mistake.

On his way back up he noticed the only one not making any noise, a young girl of an age staring glossy eyed past him. Dom was useless at guessing ages but he can confirm that she had one, in his experience most people had those. Apart from this one pre-war ghoul who had forgotten how old he was, and Dom could not blame him, he did not even remember when his own birthday was. He shook his head, an imperceptible movement but it still broke both his and the girls reverie.
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