biomagnetic (biomagnetic) wrote in helladjacent, @ 2017-03-19 19:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | !jumps: the walking dead, character: erik lehnsherr, character: gretel |
Who: Erik Lehnsherr and Gretel
What: There's no such thing as "coincidence."
When: Tuesday, mid-morning
Where: Starting at Gretel's cage house, then moving elsewhere
Warnings: Zombie death
Status: Ongoing/Closed
As angry as she was at being caged in this house as the new vampire’s personal blood donor- and after she suitably tired herself out by trying to pry her way out- Gretel resigned herself to a few somewhat peaceful hours of sleep to wait out the night. Sure, she couldn’t get out, but not even a horde of those walking corpses could break through the wall of up-ended vehicles stacked against the house like a giant tortoise shell of metal.
She ate the rabbit roasted in the fireplace, finished it off with water and one of the apples, then curled up on the dusty couch to pray for a long, dreamless sleep. That prayer was answered, if only because of how mentally and physically exhausted she’d been. When that sleep ebbed away, replaced by the ache in her neck and stiff legs, the sun was already at mid-morning’s point in the sky- or what she could guess from the small amount of window she actually had to see out from.
That’s when she saw someone across the street- someone distinctly not dead- looking directly at the house she was trapped in. No wonder, too- it had to be a weird fucking sight.
“Hey!” she called out from her sliver of a front window, from behind the overturned truck that blocked it. She helped by beating three times sharply on the broken window frame. “I’m stuck in here!!”
Erik hadn’t spent much time apart from Judith since the start of the week, but now that they were settled somewhere that wasn’t the hotel, and it was no longer just the two of them, he’d gone off on his own for at least a little while. Although he and Negan were being civil with one another, the closeness was still a little grating on his nerves. He knew Judith was fine on her own, and she had Negan with her, and Erik didn’t really have to worry much for his own safety.
He decided to branch out and search the area a little more. Mostly, he was trying to become familiar with their surroundings, and killing off whatever animated corpses he found along the way. For the most part, the morning was uneventful, and he actually found himself at least partly enjoying his stroll in the morning sun.
His walk was stopped short when he came across something plain bizarre: a house with cars stacked against it. It was strange enough on its own, but stranger still was the fact that he hadn’t done it. He’d fortified the gas station, but they hadn’t come this far out, which meant someone else did it.
It wasn’t that much of a surprise when he heard someone yelling from the inside of the house. At first, he couldn’t tell where she was yelling from, but as he came closer, he could see the broken window, and the woman inside of the house. He looked around as he approached the truck, keeping an eye out for the corpses which would no doubt he approaching soon.
“Keep it down,” he said, loudly enough so she would be able to hear, but far quieter than she’d been. “You’ll draw their attention.” In fact, one rounded the side of the house, but Erik sent a screw whizzing through its skull before it could get within the field of vision of the woman inside of the house. “How did you get stuck in there?”
Gretel was plenty aware of how loud she was, and that it would likely bring the fucking corpses around (not that they weren't there already) but how else was she going to get his attention?
“I'm not sure you'd believe me if I told you,” she said, squinting to see him better. It was next to impossible, thanks to the small space and the sun right behind him. “Some asshole decided to keep me like a pet, is the short version.”. Or like a pig he could bleed whenever he needed. “Can you see a way out?”
Erik grimaced. Fantastic. All they needed was someone who could move cars and liked to keep people as pets. He took a step back from the truck again, looking between the vehicles and trying to see if there were any spaces already available- or any that could be made easily available, hopefully without her noticing.
“Whoever locked you in there did a damn good job of it,” he muttered, and frowned. There wasn’t going to be a discrete way to do this, but he couldn’t very well leave her in there, either.
He could lie. He could go back, and get help, but even if he did, the three people he might ask for help already knew about his mutation. What was the point in keeping it contained from one more person? He gave a resigned sigh.
“It’s your lucky day,” he said, and looked back towards the woman inside. “Hold on just a second-”
He stepped away from the truck again, lifting his hand towards the vehicles that blocked the doorway, and pulling them back away from the house, setting them down on their tires in the front yard. Once they were out of the way, he walked up to the front door, and knocked.
There wasn’t much she could see from her uncomfortable vantage point, but it was difficult not to notice that one man managed to move two full vehicles- at the same time- without equipment or help.
The look on her face when she opened the door was impressed- at first- with her brows raised high ready to thank him and her luck, until the spark of recognition drew them back down, knitted over her nose.
“...You’re the vampire from the woods.” She stated it simply, her tone difficult to read save for complicated and still uncertain about how to process the information.
Erik had a pleasant enough smile on his face when she opened the door, but it faded slightly when he saw her expression. Then it dropped completely, and he furrowed his brow for a moment, staring at her. He didn’t recognize her at all, of course; she’d been a wolf. But he believed her.
After a few tense moments of silence, he gave a short sigh.
“Well, I’m not a vampire anymore,” he said. “And I assume you’re no longer a werewolf, or you would have known that.” His tone made it clear he wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about it, either, but there certainly wasn’t any hostility to it. “I suppose you can consider this my apology for attacking you. I seem to make a bad habit of trying to fight things that can kill me.”
She couldn’t be sure, but Gretel didn’t think she would’ve felt anything about it, even if he hadn’t just liberated her from a giant cage. The void that separated her from last week had been cavernous and damaging- at least this one thing could come of it.
“I’m trying not to think about a lot of what happened last week,” she confessed with a heaviness in her eyes she didn’t let him see. She finished gathering her things in the living room, including cooked meat, blanket, a couple books, soap, water in the skin, and of course, her crossbow. Eric may have penned her in, but at least he did a lot of foraging for her. “I’m fine pretending it never happened… so thank you.” On her way out, she pressed a small fold of fabric in his hand that contained a bit of cooked rabbit and an apple.
“So how did you move them?” she asked, reading a dagger from her corset for the corpse shuffling their way from across the street.
Erik watched her from where he stood in the doorway, and he was just as relieved as she was to let the week before go. They hadn’t killed each other, at least. He looked down at the food in his hands, and rather than insist he didn’t need it, he slipped the rabbit folded into the cloth into his pocket, and took a bite from the apple.
“I have a mutation that allows me to control metal and magnetic fields,” he said. It was far easier than lying. He saw the corpse coming towards them, and pulled a nail from his pocket. He took another bite from his apple, and sent the nail flying across the street, through one of the corpse’s eye sockets. “How did the person who locked you up move them?”
The thing had lifted arms and gnashing, rotten teeth snapping at her when it suddenly lurched back and collapsed, motionless and now without an eye. It took a few seconds to piece together what happened, it all sinking in when she looked back at the man. She just realized then that she didn’t know his name.
“I don’t know exactly,” she said while putting away her dagger. “But he’s an actual vampire- an ancient. I suspect he just...lifted them.” Her nose wrinkled a little. “He showed up not long after the clock chimed.”
Erik frowned as he looked at the cars that still made the house into a prison. The fact that this newcomer had already used his abilities to take advantage of someone in a more vulnerable position made him weary. He lifted his hand towards the two cars he’d moved, and shifted them back into their positions from before.
“At least he’s making himself at home,” he said, his tone dry. When he looked at the woman again, he realized they hadn’t properly introduced themselves. “I’m Erik, by the way. You’re welcome to come with me, if you like. A small group of us made shelter in a gas station nearby.”
Although, judging by the look of her crossbow, and the way she carried herself, she didn’t need much help against the corpses. Ancient vampires, however, were a different story.
She looked straight at him when he said his name, clear surprise written in her eyes. After a moment of stunned silence, she scoffed colorlessly, the smile on her face anything but actually amused.
“That’s his name, too-” she shook her head, re-shouldering her bow. “Small fucking world. -anyway, my name is Gretel. And I don’t think you want me near you and yours at night, considering he found me so easily for the last one.”
Erik just snorted, and also shook his head. Of course it was. This hotel was filled with nothing but coincidences- if they could even be called that.
“I appreciate that, but you might have a better shot of not being trapped somewhere if you’re with other people,” he said. “You’re only an easy target when you’re by yourself.”
Granted, it didn’t seem this other Eric was really hurting her… just keeping her stuck in one place, not that that was any more acceptable. He didn’t like the idea of just leaving her, but he couldn’t make her do anything she didn’t want to.
“If you’d rather, I can help you fortify a different house,” he suggested, glancing around. “Or a different building further from here. It would make you harder for him to find, at least.”
Somehow, Gretel doubted it would be that easy, but she wasn’t so detached from herself to refuse a bit of help. She doubted the blond bastard would be all that pleased when he found his easy meal gone from its cage.
“Right. Guess we’ll see what we can find, long as you’re offering.” Sighing as she thought about it, she wiped a half-gloved hand over her brow and muttered to herself something in old German about finding garlic or a goddamned priest.
Erik couldn’t help the smirk and the chuckle at her comment, partly because he appreciated her frustration, and partly because of the language. All he ever heard around the hotel was English.
“If your vampire can move cars, I don’t think garlic or religion is going to help you,,” he said, his native German rolling off his tongue easily. Then again, maybe trying to barricade her in somewhere of her choosing wouldn’t help much, either, but hopefully moving would throw him off for a little while.