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Stuart
"2D"
Allaway
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"Humans forget. They always do."
19//Born February 20//Male//German born Scottish
Foster The People - Pumped Up Kicks
I've waited for a long time
Yeah the sleight of my hand is now a quick-pull trigger
I reason with my cigarette
Then say, "Your hair's on fire, you must've lost your wits, yeah?"
Stuart works as a caretaker for the young children who are still unable to do anything useful. An easy job. All he needs to do is ensure that they don't die, and that he has the same amount of children as he did at the beginning of the day. Frankly, he doesn't even remember all their names. He just calls them all shorties, and most people seem to just think it's a term of endearment. Besides, he's been taking care of Mika for years, taking care of children isn't really much different.
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run, outrun my gun
All the other kids with the pumped up kicks
You better run, better run, faster than my bullet
Soft fair hair, a pale blond that is cut surprisingly neatly when Stuart doesn't care much for how it looks at all. He had shaved all of it off one year, because it bothered him, though he ended up growing it back out after that because he'd never really noticed how cold it could get. In this situation, especially, Stuart finds it pointless to keep his hair neat. He's not trying to impress the monsters, after all. If his friend, Mika, were not so insistent on fixing up his hair, Stuart wouldn't bother. But it's funny when his friend seems interested in things, so he just goes along with it. Which is why, in the middle of every month, he sits down and spends some time relaxing and reading a book while his friend cuts his hair. He has a side cut, the other half of his hair being long enough to fall neatly over his eye.
His eyes are grey, a stormy colour that seems a bit more flat when he's angry, but more often than not holds a slight twinkle of amusement unfitting for the situation in which everyone has found themselves. But his eyes, though they may be called the windows to his soul, never seem to be as expressive as they should be. When he smiles, the expression rarely reaches his eyes, and the smile itself, close-lipped and mocking, is always much too practiced, not at all genuine. This, of course, goes for every little expression he ever shows. Every frown, every laugh, every tear, seems to be something that he'd practiced over and over to get just right. He had 19 years, after all. He has had quite a lot of time to practice, and everyone should be just as practiced as him, if not more.
He has few scars or any other marks to mar his pale, smooth skin. He has, in fact, few physical imperfections to show he's had much issues in his life at all. His teeth are straight and white, he stands tall and broad shouldered, with the confidence of a man who feels that nothing could hurt him. Despite having been in this wasteland since he was just a young teen who saw how easy is was for his family to die, having had their lives taken away by something much less than a zombie, he retains this confidence in himself. Of course, it doesn't help that his childhood friend worships him in every way.
He is, in fact, as close to perfect as he can believe one to be. The king, dressed in his robes of black and white, as is his choice of colour in his clothing. His clothing seems much too expensive to bother wearing in a land where he can be moments away from being stuck out in the darkness, with monsters hiding in the shadows. Rather out of place, even, when he could be just about to be ripped apart by the zombies.
Frank Sinatra - My Way
Regrets, I've had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way
As he grew up, Stuart found that everything was really quite amusing. The rat race of school was hilarious, the way that all those students in Gymnasium tried so hard to beat each other so they could become the adults who tried so hard to get pieces of paper to be exchanged for food and unnecessary goods. Sad, perhaps, was a better word, but why would Stuart be sad for something that didn't affect him? He thought things were funny instead. He found it hard to sympathize, after all, when it was the people themselves who brought such suffering on their terribly short lives
To most, Stuart makes a conscious effort to keep a steady, respectful tone, keeping that slight distance that some of them seemed to prefer, yet he often had that somewhat snarky smile on his face while doing so. Among peers, his behaviour changed. Not by much, but you find him less likely to cover up his opinions through kind tones, finding some enjoyment in seeing how quickly a smile could disappear with just a few words. He was good, still, at pretending. At his careful laughs which were neither too loud or too hesitant, his smile which never seemed so happy, his feigned empathy which served him well with fitting in with the rest of his peers.
He finds it fun to hold little experiments at times. Stuart loves to learn. When he finds himself asking a question that he cannot find an answer to, what better way to solve that than by conducting an experiment? He'd ignored Mika once for a year, just to see how he'd react to that. The kid looked like he would burst into tears during the entire thing, but never once tried to bother Stuart. It was a fun sight to see. His most interesting experiment was seeing how long it'd be until zombies would ignore a dead body. That one was more difficult, because even he was uncomfortable at the chance that his bait would be thrown too late. But he had done it well enough, and many of the zombies seemed to still follow the basic instincts of a predator, preferring the easy game over the chase.
Observant, Stuart always seemed to be able to find the right moment to talk to a person about their troubles and worries, and was patient enough to sit with them and listen until they had finished talking about all their grievances. Partially, perhaps, because he liked hearing the stories. Everyone had so many problems, really. Many were easy to fix, really, and he liked to see how long it'd take for them to figure out the answers. Of course, he never really felt sad for them. It's difficult to when he did not share their experiences.
Stuart was never a big believer in labouring for his goals. Stuart, after all, had a perfectly capable and kind friend to do it for him. Stuart never had to dirty his hands. It's easy to convince his friend to do him favours, so was there any point in doing bothersome things on his own? Essentially, whatever he could get someone else to do may as well be done by them. There is no need to strain himself pointlessly. Despite that, he doesn't find himself to be a manipulative person. The only person who he usually gets to do as he asks is his friend, who would certainly do what anyone asked of him.
People have found him to be, generally, amazingly calm. It is Mika who is prone to explosions of emotion. Stuart was the one who told him to stay calm and work to get through it. He can laugh off the things that happen, because they often happen to other people, and he has no sympathy for other people. Even in the face of danger, if he has someone with him, he will not worry. They can die before he will. If they die, then he will worry.
For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows and did it my way
His family moved to Germany before he was born. Probably for a job opportunity. They lived in a large home, much too large for a young family of two to live. A third would be wonderful. So, how wonderful it was when they found out that a third would indeed be coming along. They were quite excited, and were simply filled with love and joy when their lovely, healthy baby boy was born. On that day, their lovely family grew from two to three. Such a loving family it was, who gave their first child everything he wanted. Their son, of course, was perfect and quite deserving of such treatment. That was how it was for a long time.
He met Mika in Kita. The young Stuart saw the boy, with scuffed shoes and mud on his face. He decided that he was as good a person as any to keep the company of.
"Do you mind?" asked Stuart, rolling the toy car in his hand as he smiled at the other boy. The reply came as a nearly indiscernible nod. Stuart decided that was as fine an answer as any.
From then on, for reasons unbeknownst to Stuart, they became friends. Mika was different. He barely spoke. His emotions came in volatile bursts. Stuart was quite interested in him.
They became close, one might say. Mika was attached to Stuart, and Stuart never bothered to discourage him of that. He saw little point in that. Mika liked him, and he liked Stuart's family, despite the fact that his parents did not share those sentiments for the scruffy boy whose clothes were often muddy and a bit too big. He trusted them, for reasons Stuart didn't bother trying to understand. Of course, his family was far too boring to tell grand lies, though they did keep the bigger arguments under wraps. Stuart supposed there was little reason for Mika not to trust them.
Mika was helpful. He was able to keep Stuart's younger sister company, and stayed fairly quiet when Stuart was studying. Occasionally Stuart would help Mika with his work. Sometimes he just had nothing better to do. Besides, it was almost pitiful, watching the other boy struggle on such simple subjects.
Mika spent more days at Stuart's home than his own, and so it was natural that that was where he was by the time the zombies had become a real threat.
Stuart's parents were genuinely selfish people, though they tried to conceal that through smiles and kind words. Less than week of hiding behind dark windows and blocked doors, and they were beginning to fear quite a bit for their own lives, with the presence of the extra boy who was using up their food, never mind the fact that Mika rarely ate in the first place. They wanted Stuart to give Mika a knife and tell him to go home. Stuart was fine with that, of course. He didn't care much about what happened to Mika, and he almost did as he was told.
It was then that he realized something terrible. Mika was interesting enough company. However, his family was not. They were rather suffocating, in fact. While Mika was a tad clingy, he was quite willing to let Stuart do whatever he wanted. So, he decided not to do what they asked. However, there had been a little thing about the zombies that Stuart had been curious about, and it was only a short time after this that he decided that he may as well conduct an experiment.
He waited until he had a chance to talk to Mika alone. Simple enough, as Stuart's parents didn't speak to him, and his sister disappeared soon enough when Stuart approached them. The key to a good conversation with Mika was to say something nice first. It wasn't as though Mika wouldn't listen otherwise, but it was funny to see his face light up. He looked more like a child when it happened.
It was simple enough to push the conversation to something more serious. Mika always let Stuart lead the conversations. "I'm worried we're going to run out of food soon." That was a lie. Enough perishables to last a year between the two of them, and Stuart didn't intend to stay so long. He quickly deflected Mika's offer of eating less---it would be a bother for the most interesting thing in Stuart's life at the moment to die of starvation.
He steered the conversation towards leaving. More specifically, the fact that they couldn't leave with his family. The only two possibilities, he said, was for them to be ripped apart by zombies, or for them to starve. Not necessarily true, of course. Stuart's sister was an astoundingly good athlete, and had been able to hold her own well against schoolyard bullies. He could always trust his parents to be ruthless and resourceful when needed. But Mika hardly needed to know that.
Stuart wasn't sure if what he said was going to work, of course. Mika, despite having a strange tendency to start fights he couldn't possibly win, lacked the ability to kill even the most annoying pests. It was annoying, really. But he left the conversation with a slight suggestion and hoped that Mika would somehow manage to do as he wished.
Then it was time for the next step in Stuart's little experiment. Offering to be the good son, he went off to fetch drinks for everyone. Red wine for his parents, orange juice for him and his sister. The day before that, he'd taken some of the sleeping pills his mother kept, a bit more than what three people would need, and crushed that into a fine powder. That went into the drinks. While his parents did comment on the taste of the wine, by the end of the meal the glasses were empty.
His parents went to bed early that night, already seeming half asleep as Stuart helped them stumble into bed. He closed the door to their room behind him, and went back to the living room, where he found his little sister asleep. Stuart lifted her up and carried her back to her room, tucking her in and closing her door behind him as well. Mika was in the kitchen when he went to bid him goodnight. Once it was all done and over with, he went to his own room, leaving the door just barely open. Stuart fell into a comfortable, dreamless sleep with relative ease.
He woke up with the soft creak of a floorboard. There was one floorboard between his room and his parents' room which was particularly loose, and he'd learned over the years to step over it if he wanted to sneak about. Mika never knew to do that. In a normal circumstance, his parents would surely have woken up the moment Mika stepped onto that creaking floorboard. It's a good thing Stuart had been careful of that. You see, he could have just left things be. It would be funny to see how it would work out if they have seen Mika. But Stuart had helped, as he was quite aware that Mika could be rather helpless on his own. Stuart lay in his bed, unmoving. He could hear the sound of his friend shuffling about on the other side of the wall.
He was getting quite excited, to be perfectly honest. Giddy, almost, at the prospect of what was to come. Stuart was a boy who enjoyed those thrilling moments, and there was little he could think of than what was to transpire on the other side of the wall. Who would think that Mika would be so easy to control? Most surely wouldn't jump to the idea of murdering a family just because of a few words from a friend. He hadn't said a thing, really, about killing them. Yet Mika had gone to that conclusion anyway. Perhaps Mika knew him better than he thought.
Stuart listened to the sounds in the other room, barely daring to breathe in case it would drown out a sound. He was quite certain that the younger boy was crying. Though he couldn't quite hear sounds to indicate such, Mika could cry much too easily, in Stuart's opinion. It could almost be a bother at times, but at that moment Stuart was really quite amused at the idea. Just picturing him with tears in his eyes while he killed two people, isn't that just so funny? Especially when he barely knew Stuart's parents at all. They were quite good at putting on smiles around other people, and Mika never seemed to realize just how ingenuine the couple was.
Mika spent an extremely long time in that room. Really, how much time did it take to kill two sleeping people? He must have been in the room for an hour at least. Stuart was almost bored. He was nearly tempted to get up and go check up on him. However, he contented himself by simply getting out of bed, bringing himself closer to the wall that divided his room and his parents' room. He could still hear the sounds of his friend moving inside, and he couldn't help but wonder what the boy was doing. But he decided that he could figure that out later.
Eventually, Stuart heard the sound of the door close. The floorboard between his room and his parents' room let out a high pitched creak. From his open door he saw a slight shift in the shadows as Mika passed by. Careful not to make too much noise, Stuart moved across the room, towards the door. He pushed it only a fraction wider to watch Mika as he reached his sisters door.
Mika stayed there for an inordinately long time. From what Stuart could see in the darkness, there was no movement. No particular sign of life. How long did that last? It felt much too long. However, when Stuart was ready to go back to bed and just see what happened in the morning, he heard the door click open.
With Mika in the room, Stuart decided that he might as well get the bags he'd had packed. A coat, some clothes, and as much food as he could fit into it in one bag. In a second bag, he'd put more food, as well as some of his clothes that Mika could wear.
With the bags, he's hidden his baseball bats. He greatly enjoyed the idea of breaking bones with them. He tossed the bags on top of his bed rather carelessly, not particularly worried if Mika heard anymore. Taking one of the bats with him, he headed out his room and walked across the hall to his sister's room.
"This wasn't what I meant, you know," he said as he came to a stop at the doorframe. It was amusing to how quickly Mika jumped away from the girl he was smothering, and the way his face fell. Of course, it had been exactly what he meant, but Mika didn't need to know.
Stuart walked over to Mika, patting him on the head lightly like it were some sort of comfort. Mika looked up slowly, looking at Stuart with a tearful expression that was, honestly, quite amusing. Stuart wiped away the tears that had been steadily falling and smiled at him. "Go get cleaned up, Mika, we need to leave soon."
The other boy nodded, and left. Once he heard the sound of water running, Stuart went to check on his little sister. He noted the light rise and fall of her chest and sighed. Useless. Lifting the bat he had in his hand, he brought it down heavily on her head. Did he have to do everything himself?
By the time the other boy returned, Stuart had wrapped his younger sister in her blanket. He'd set her in with their mother, in the wagon she insisted on keeping despite never using it. He was glad she did. However, he kept the father in his room.
"I don't think we'd be able to get out so easily," explained Stuart. "There are a lot of zombies outside. So, here's my plan. We have three bodies now, so we could try to use them as bait. If we threw my father's body out the window, we may be able to bait the zombies around our house into going there. Then we can go out from the opposite side of the house. If we run into trouble, we have more bait at hand.
The boys went forward with the plan, lifting the body of the father and tossing it out the window. They watched as it fell, attracting the attention of nearby zombies. Stuart noted a couple ignore the body. However, most seemed content with the easy meal. The boys headed for their exit. Stuart walked in the back, as Mika wheeled along the wagon.
They had gotten down the driveway, halfway down the street, when they felt the need to throw the sister's body, which the monsters tore into with a fervent vigour, and at the end when they threw out the mother's body. Unfortunate, as he was quite interested in how long they could keep a body until zombies ceased to be interested, but he could get another chance.
They travelled for around a year. It was actually rather fun. The first time they came across someone, it was a man in a car. The car was mangled beyond repair, and the man seemed quite glad to see other people there who could help him. They broke the windows of the car, and then just left him screaming at them behind them. He was quite stuck, and bleeding. Stuart didn't worry much about the man exacting revenge.
The second time they came across someone was two months later, a girl who was even younger than they were. The girl had just insisted on following along, and Mika had a soft spot for her. She was annoying. Stuart let her hang around for two days before he got tired of her. While Mika slept one night, Stuart went with a walk with the girl. Once he was a safe enough distance from the light sleeping boy, he knocked her down and broke her legs with his bat. He imagined that her screams did a fine job of attracting the zombies to finish the job for him.
They moved on.
The two boys had been wandering quite aimlessly up until that point, doing little more than breaking windshields and taking what they needed from stores. Occasionally they would attack small groups of survivors if it seemed like a low-risk venture, or guide them to zombies when asked about where to go. However, they eventually heard about the safe zone in Luxembourg. With little place else they could go, the boys decided to try their luck in Luxembourg.
It was a bother, of course. Stuart was enjoying being able to do what he wanted for once in his fifteen years of life. However, Mika certainly seemed like he wanted to go there, and it would be boring to travel alone. But as far as places go, Luxembourg was not the worst. He was quite glad, certainly, that he didn't need to deal with his family anymore.
A polypropylene bat. Durable, good for breaking windshields and bones. He'd bought them as an amusing little weapon for his own fantasies before the incident.
This is, this is it
They're tryn'a take it from me
Got this, this is it
Won't let them take it from me
Play an illegal song
And turn it up louder
Mika Faust - He's interesting enough. Stuart has known him since they were children, and Mika often ends up being to subject of Stuart's experiments.
Naoto Shulz - Stuart met this strange person when he was just a young teen. A friend of Mika's, who strangely always seemed to be carrying orange pixie stix that she gives to Mika. It's as though the other boy is a child, which it amusing. He always seems stupidly competitive, and rather in a hurry.
His Family - They were bothersome people, really. The world is better off without them. |