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The sun was hotter than it had ever been, of this Scud was certain, on any other morning in history.
It bore down on him and made him more uncomfortable than it had any right to, but he'd just have to live with that.
He raised a pistol with shaky hands at a still body on the ground, aiming unsteadily at the head as he inched closer and nudged the corpse with the toe of his boot. When it didn't move, he dared a bit closer, slowly lowering into a crouch with the gun still trained on the head of the body. The body practically creaked to life then, startling Scud and causing him to backpedal in his half-crouched position and inevitably trip backwards and fall.
"Fuck!" he spat in a bit of a higher pitch than his usual tone. As he got to his feet, he lifted the gun quickly and put a bullet in the walkers head, flinching hard at the gunshot and its resulting echoes into the distance. Shit.
He went through the pockets of the corpse, grumbling obscenities all the while and especially so when his search bore no fruit.
"Fuuuuuck," he said in a considerably more dignified tone of voice than had previously been used. Well that was pointless and a waste of time. Not to mention now he had to make tracks and get the hell out. His anxiety skyrocketed as he quickly made haste away from the road and deeper into the hills and woods. Amazing how fast he could run when he thought he was about to die though his exertion would come back to bite him later.
The bunker wasn't much to look at from the outside but it was safe and well stocked(with everything except drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes), so Scud didn't really complain about the accommodations. Descending into the structure was a whole other story, however. The concrete walls were stifling and felt cold, the lack of windows made him feel cornered. Though his biggest concern was less so the house and moreso the housemate.
The housemate in question was a violent predator whose only source of food for miles was running joyfully through Scud's veins. Deacon Frost was an insatiable vampire, and the fact that he'd survived this long on a single body was a testament to nothing if not his surprisingly vast quantities of self control.
Scud felt watched, and this was reasonable considering the cameras set up around the structure, but he knew Deacon wasn't in the surveillance room. The man was far too easily bored for that. No, Deacon was likely in the library where he had taken to reading. Exactly what? It varied, depending on his interests. Mostly he seemed to enjoy history, and Scud usually passed his time tinkering with weapons and explosives with power puff girls creating a calming flow of noise to ease his woefully sober nerves.
His footsteps echoed hollowly through the halls as he made his way to the library, the sound of old rock crackling through the air from the record player. When Scud turned the corner into the room with walls lined with various books, his eyes went to the record player out of habit as if to reassure himself that it was in fact the player making the noise. Second, he looked to Deacon who was seated at a dimly lit table in the back, various maps and books sprawled out across the surface of it. His eyes would scour these resources thoroughly, and occasionally Deacon would turn a page, or write something down in the notebook under his writing hand. Of course Scud would be a fool to think he hadn't been noticed yet, so he simply made his way in, shrugging off his jacket and leaving only the raggedy t-shirt he was wearing underneath.
Approaching the table, he draped his coat over the back of a chair and then plopped down into it like a rebellious 15 year old. Deacon did not move nor acknowledge the humans presence, clearly caught up on something of more importance(literally anything other than Scud). That being said, Scud took it upon himself to figure out what the hell Deacon was doing, turning his attention from the vampires pale face to the material scattered before him on the table.
There was writing and markings from a pen on the map in various ways, usually charting a road or circling a landmark or resource. Probably important. He inspected the various other things there, such as books and pamphlets like the kind you find in visitors centers telling you all the cool things you can do in the local and surrounding areas.
Of course this was all meaningless to Scud because all the surrounding areas were abandoned, that much Scud knew. So what could Deacon possibly want with them? Who knows.
Scud, bored, channeled his inner child and proceeded to lightly tap Deacon's leg under the table with his foot, eyes trained on the focused vampire whose pen stopped the second the humans shoe made contact, and then remained still as Scud continued to pester the vampire. Scud knew very well that Deacon needed him alive and he liked to play that up to his advantage with little to no regard for the things Deacon could do to him that would not kill him.
One of these many things would be Deacon promptly socking him in the face with a tightly closed fist from across the table. Scud should have honestly seen that one coming and he probably did honestly, it just felt so fucking good to take out his pent up frustrations on the immortal despite the fact that Deacon tended to deal it all right back ten fold. He would never have done these things before humanity was devoured by the mindless undead, but now that Deacon was just as dependent on him as he was of Deacon, it changed the game quite a bit.
Scud recoiled from the impact of Deacon's fist against his cheek, immediately drawing up his hands to protect himself in case the vampire continued, but the creature only fixed Scud with a scowl, putting his pen down and focusing his attention on the human.
And then hit him again, on the other cheek this time. Scud expected that one a little more, but it still hurt. He cringed cowering into his seat as he rubbed the now uncomfortably warm and quickly bruising skin of his cheek. He paused when Deacon stood, then tensed up when the vampire started rounding the table. Time to make a run for it? Well, not that that ever did him any good. Deacon didn't like being stuck here with him any more than he liked being stuck here with Deacon, so of course tensions were usually very high and interactions incredibly violent.
Neither party seemed to particularly care about that part, actually.
Before Scud could weasel out of his seat and away from Deacon's ill mood, the vampire grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into a punch that promptly broke Scud's nose. Blood ran leisurely from both nostrils from injury within, and Scud's eyes watered and tears flowed from the immense pain. Deacon pulled him in close by an unrelenting grip on the collar of his shirt and bore those sharp fangs in the humans face.
"I'm fucking busy," he hissed irritably, suddenly letting go and watching as Scud near-collapsed from his legs suddenly being the only thing supporting him again. He wiped his bleeding face on his arm as the angry kitten returned to his seat at the table and continued his research, seemingly less tense than he had previously been prior to pummeling Scud's face into a gross mess.
"You liked it," Scud mumbled under his breathe as he made off to his little tinkering room to be away from the destroyer of faces.