You with me? (AoS, Chase)

Late nights did not bother the Yorkshire man. He had a tendency to get caught up in whatever work he was doing, not realizing that he had spent an entire night hunched over a map. Sledge didn’t mind missing a night or two of sleep, he could always catch up at a later point. Yes, Sledge was most definitely a night owl. Back when he had his flat, it lacked alarm clocks. For one, there was no need for him to have them. It wasn’t as though he had to wake up by a certain hour to go to work. Secondly he didn’t usually pick up on the sounds that most alarm clocks made. If, by some miracle, the sound did register in his mind, there was the small mater of his sledgehammer. Money hadn’t been a concern, and even if it was, nobody expects you to lift an alarm clock, but having to replace a bit of machinery every day was bound to be tedious. Not only would the alarm clock have ended up being a sacrifice to the gods of sleeping in, but the nightstand upon which it rested would need more than some wood glue to bring it back.

The task off keeping an eye on the kid that day had fallen upon Sledge. While the sun was up it wasn’t that bad really. Try to keep Chase a reasonable proximity to the group, don’t let him die, and see that he got his share of what food was found. Night was an entirely different matter. As was, Sledge found what little sleep he managed to get difficult, what with the stomach pains and tightening of his throat. Add to that keeping an eye out for everyone else while they slept. His nighttime issues were bad enough, he didn’t need to handle Chase’s on top of that. Or, more accurately, he didn’t know how to help. How do you chase away a child’s night terrors when you can’t even control your own? Tonight he hoped that for once Chase would be able to sleep without interruption.

As was always the case when Sledge was hard at work, his mind was focused entirely on the job. Go to some of those shelters that churches and other people wanting to seem charitable ran, take food, blankets, anything that Sledge thought would make his life easier. Persuasion and a sexy British accent didn’t work as well as it use to. These days brute force was the only way to get anything. Time had made Sledge’s punches more reliable, his arms did not get exhausted as easily as they had in the past. More punches, sturdier arms, his fists hard as steel as he hit his target. Sledge had confidence in his capabilities, perhaps too much. Still, as damaging as his arms could be, without feeling any harm on himself, he had a habit now established. If a fight snuck up on him, he cracked his knuckles before the first punch was tossed. The activity he was now doing, as he approached his first stop of the evening, was when he got to plan ahead. Taking a dwindling roll of medical tape, he began to wrap his knuckles and wrists. When he pulled this off, he could be like Santa to Chase, giving the kid something that a normal child should have. Santa who had blood on his hands.

Taping his knuckles was a rather pointless endeavor. As long as his arms were capable of delivering those sledgehammer blows, they were in no risk of being broken. A cement block wall was more likely to give than the Brit’s bones, and he didn’t always drink up his milk as a young’in. That wasn’t to say that his hands or arms were invincible. For almost a third of his life Sledge had bared a scar on the back of his wrist that showed his arms were flesh and blood, same as anyone else’s. He could be cut, burnt, impaled, any number of things, just not broken. A bit of tape, no matter how many times wrapped around, was going to keep fingers attached should a flying blade hit him. But taking the time to do such a meaningless task allowed him some time to clear his mind, and granted some sense of consistency. In the small habits and day to day to action Sledge could temporarily trick himself into thinking that things weren’t as bad as they really were. Sledge didn’t need the protection offered by the medical tape, but he craved the security.

Security would be easier to establish if Sledge weren’t so focused in on one thing at a time. Briggs, for all the times he did a bodge job, still was better than nothing, and should things go the way of fisticuffs, Sledge would rather have Briggs on his side than as the opposition. The sound of metal moving, something that stood in sharp contrast to normal nocturnal noises, caused the Brit to turn on his heel. His hands instantly were clenched into fists that rested in a ready stance beside his jaw. From behind a pillar peeked a familiar little face. The fists were dropped. “Bloody hell no,” Sledge declared, clenching his jaw so tightly his bone structure could be seen even with the scruffy beard. He pointed at Chase with one finger, knit his eyebrows, than pointed to a spot in front of him. When Sledge was a young kid his Da would do the same thing, demanding an explanation for whatever trouble he had gotten into.

Sledge’s Da had been the one who enforced things in the shabby house in Bradford. The man had been almost militant. Leaving his boots laying about got him a shift in Charlie’s shop, a torture worse than being grounded to the man. The mixture of rubber tires, petrol, and brake fluid always gave him a headache, and it only rubbed Sledge’s nose in the extreme poverty that he lived in. His brother could repair the autos that the rest of England drove about, yet nobody in his family ever owned one. What purpose did it serve him to learn how to repair something he had no hopes of obtaining. Little things, such as clothes and records, his parents never noticed, but Sledge didn’t think they would turn a blind eye to a posh car sitting outside the house, no matter how good he was. He also didn’t think that he’d turn into his father other than a shared addiction to work. All in all, he wasn’t enjoying this. Was it karma for him disobeying his Da all those years?

“Doesn’t matter what I’m suppose to be doing now does it?” Sledge asked, staring down the kid. He was the adult in this situation, and Chase was going to have to obey him. “You would ‘ave been fine back at camp. There’s enough of us that someone can play babysitter to yeh.” Why couldn’t Chase just have stayed still with the others? Chase was going to have to grow up, life was hard, and things were only getting tougher everyday. When Sledge was unable to sleep at night he simply stayed still and acted as though he was still unconscious. This constant needing to be around someone only made the kid look weaker.

Chase tried to stand up for himself, as though his following Sledge was perfectly acceptable. Sledge pinched the bridge of his nose. Taking the kid back to the others was going to occupy a large portion of his night, and his plan was to get this over with before the pack moved on the next day. Sledge made a disgruntled noise. “You should have stayed with them. I’ve got plans for the night and I don’t need to spend all me time making sure that your head stays where it is.”

"Is not," Sledge reaffirmed, taking care to not let his response sound like a little kid sticking his tongue out. One of the hardest lessons to learn in life was that sometimes, when a grown up says something, they really do know what they are talking about. Doubt is easy and for the common, faith is hard and for the wise. Is it any wonder that the time when child thinks that their parents are idiots is when they are most wrongly convinced that they know everything? "Iffin someone else was to be watching you tonight you'd be still back there right?"

There was, admittedly, a soft spot in Sledge's heart for Chase. Sledge hadn't been very big when he was a kid either. Both of them had to throw what weight they carried around to get people to listen to them. For Sledge it meant that he had to fight with blokes who could wipe the floor with him until they got the picture that he was always going to get back up. Chase was probably trying to do the same thing by insisting that he play a part in Sledge's plans. "The plan is for me to go in there, grab us some supplies, and you to make your way back to camp and tuck yourself in."

The boy did not move away. Instead he simply started to change shape into the green one. Size wise it was a smart move. Aurion was more intimidating than the kid, even if Chase now only shared the shape of the reptile man. In this battle of wills the doppelganger was firm in his position, but his opponent wasn't likely to cave in either. Reassurances were given that Chase could keep himself from getting hurt, and asked for his marching orders. "You're to turn about, go to the camp, and go to bed."

The was a point in Chase being able to do something to help. Sledge wasn't going to send the boy in though the shelter's doors. It was probably filled to capacity, and in the madness he didn't want to risk Chase being trampled. For now he was a giant lizard man thing, but for all his attempts at maturity, and the trials that came with the end of the world, Chase was still a kid. A kid that Sledge did not trust to stay focused. Should Chase revert back to his normal, more compact self, he'd be crushed.

When the combination of repeating orders and stern glares failed to work, probably due to having to look upwards instead of down, Sledge realized that some sort of compromise was going to have to be reached. Chase was not going to go back to the camp, and Sledge was loosing time trying to get him to go there. Surely there had to be some way in which Chase could help. "Alrigh', you want to help, then you'll do exactly as I say," the Brit decreed. When he had it, Sledge wore his fedora the way a king might his crown. Slipping into a position of authority was hardly a struggle for him. It wasn't just a mind for tactics that made one a leader, though it was a quality that Sledge possessed. For fun he had read historic battles, comparing the descriptions of the troops movements with the maps in his head. "Stay out here, do as I say, and get killed on your own time."

Though not made out of solid metal the way that his namesake, Sledgehammer's face was as hard set. Right now the kid might be able to tower over him, but that didn't mean that Chase had any better perspective of the situation. Sledge had experience with this kind of life, more than just the three years since the disaster struck. Hunger wasn't new to him and he could handle it. The days of needing extra nutrition for growing bones was done. From this point on Sledge's body was just going to be slowing down or declining. Never having much food when he was young meant that he didn't need much now. Chase was still growing, and worse still, was getting into puberty. Under normal conditions this would mean frequent raids of the refrigerator. Out on the streets it meant that normal starvation was indistinguishable from what his body would have been asking for with a proper home. It was because in his teen years that Sledge began to pinch whatever he could, including often times food, that he did not look significantly malnourished. All things considered, including the severe food allergies, illegal residence, and the language gap that existed (how could two countries that speak the same language be so far apart in a conversation?), Sledge was better equipped to handle this life that they had found themselves in. Nothing had been done to impress that fact onto the teen.

“You really shount be calling me old iffin you want to help,” he said, staring right back at the yellow eyes. This wasn't just Sledge being an adult, this was him being a leader and not allowing there to be any room for debate. What he said was law, and if you had a problem with it, then you could just go off on your own and Heaven have mercy upon you. “You might 'ave gotten into a few scraps with the rest of the pack, but this is an entirely different kettle of fish. In there it's going to be crowded, and there will[/i] be a riot in there. Do you know what a riot is like?” Chase/Aurion's face registered something akin to confusion. “A riot is a living thing. It's not the people that you knew anymore, it's not even human. It's a monster that will not stop until there has been enough blood spilled. That tail you have is going to slow you down just enough that you’ll end up being trampled. Don't expect that I can keep you safe in their either.”

Time to pull out the ace up his sleeve. “Wouldn't your parents want you to keep out of danger?” he asked, his voice almost accusing. Sledge had not softened up his tone at all while arguing with Chase. Doing so would mean that he was weakening, or at least that's how Sledge perceived it. As a child he thought that if he could get an adult to show a little concern or empathy for him, he could get what he wanted. That was why he didn't hesitate to use the waterworks as a kid when he was in trouble, and why he wasn't too worried that his youthful face would make people take him less seriously. “I'll level with you, this is the way I've always lived. On the streets, fighting whoever for whatever I want. You are in over your head 'ere. Now, you will stay outside here, keep from getting killed, and don't move unless someone is daft enough to attack you. Or if you hear me call out for help.”

Not that Sledge was going to do that. He was going to raise a little hell inside that shelter and use the confusion to take everything. Food and blankets was an obvious one. Hunger was worsened by the cold, and vice versa. The colder you are, the more important food becomes, and the less food energy that you have, the more you notice the ill weather. Maybe there was some clothes that he could swipe there. Even if something didn't fit any of the pack members, it was still useable in one way or another. If shoes wore out, then extra cloth could be used to wrap feet. Clean fabric could be used as bandages. With a little bit of fuel spare clothes could be used for torches or to keep a fire going when no wood is around. Cots were tempting. Sleeping on the ground was far from comfortable, but to have to cart the about was impractical.