[dead end]

[Nathan][twenty-four] [Hunter for The Saints camp]

[nathan-meiger-blog]

manuelposadas‌:

Taking someone’s word could end one of two ways: in life or in death. In the likelihood that they were being truthful, then they could each go their separate ways safely. On the off-chance that they were lying — well, it could spell disaster for more than just Manuel. Surely no one could blame him for his hesitance. That being said, it was highly unlikely that someone who’d come in contact with the infected would only leave with a minor scratch. For once, he was willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt. 

“A word to the wise: be careful,” he dryly remarked. “You’re lucky that I think before I shoot. I know people who’d do the opposite. Have done the opposite. No one’s going to take their chances with a total stranger. Don’t make a habit of smacking into trees.”

"You wouldn't be the first, I almost get shot at by what feels like a higher than average amount of people." Nathan managed small talk about as well as he did most things, vaguely off skew, and it was always to give himself a moment to take stock of a situation. "I tell myself that it's my tendency to randomly cause injury to myself  rather than let my self-esteem suffer the idea that people might just not like me. Or maybe I’m just too pale and look like a corpse, which also isn’t very flattering." The amount of conversational nonsense he could carry on in a short amount of time was impressive, but it did offer time to catch his breath and weigh just how likely it was that the other man might change his mind about his apparent goodwill. 

The dead were easier, he could read most of their actions clearly enough after years to practice, but the living were usually the ones that made him uneasy because the past had been very educational in learning that lesson. 

"The tree didn't exactly fight fair, but they never do." He didn't relax, exactly, but some of the unblinking edge to his study softened when he finally, for the moment, accepted that the other man was reasonable enough.

[nathan-meiger-blog]

scintamclia‌:

amelia held no grudge against those with doubts— they should all be on guard, of everything and everyone. with too much trust comes tragedy. she respected those who held their own, looking out for themselves. often those were the last ones standing. nimble fingers prod one last time at the lash, giving a sigh and looking towards the hunter. 

“ well, i hoped you were smarter than that, but you never know anymore. “ she washed her hands at the sink one last time before returning, opening up the stitch kit and spreading them across the table. medics swarmed the hall, but their little room felt small among the bustling of the trauma department. a few hunters had been brought in with cuts, and it sent the medics haywire. anything could be an infection.

“ infected or not, you’re going to need stitches. not a lot, but we’re low on anesthetic and numbing treatments. so, this is going to hurt. “ amelia lied it out flat for him, cutting the bullshit with a knife. 

Nathan didn't count his luck as holding out to be one of the last standing, he figured that would go to the ones who were actually getting some sort of twisted pleasure from zombie hunting and being part of the end of the world, the types that could take down a corpse with a paperclip and a shoe or whatever other nonsense it came to. But he was smart enough to know his limits, that kept him alive, and having learned what blind faith cost his scrutiny always fell on the ones who were leaders. It was a dangerous idea to trust people, flawed as they all were, to always know the right answers. 

Some of the old uneasy had calmed in the months being there, part of it had to because Amelia didn't cut him much slack and that was familiar enough to keep him focused, even while he barely paid attention to what she was doing in comparison to the mild ache in his skull already. Trees weren't the most yielding obstacles, in his experience. 

"Because everything else is just such a joy already," he replied with a tip of his eyes back skyward with the resignation over the idea of stitches. "It's fine, I'll manage to hold back my pathetic sounds of agony until I'm back in the solitude of my room. Probably bad for moral and all." His tone never changed but the thicker the sarcastic commentary the surer sign that he wasn't looking forward to the experience. "Some days I deeply envy masochists, the last few years must have been like Disneyland for them."

[nathan-meiger-blog]

msplacedsrvor‌:

A soft hum of agreement flows out of his throat, as his gaze takes a pensive look. He doesn’t need to pick out a cotton ball or put extra care in making sure it doesn’t get drenched by the water, lest he loses more drops of it on the other’s trousers than what actually lands on his forehead when he finally gets to clean the wound.

He doesn’t need to keep his gaze so intensely focused on it either, the motion doesn’t take more than a few strokes really; cotton balls are made to suck up liquid after all, better than most other materials: a dryer one for the fresh blood, a wetter one to wipe at what wouldn’t come away just as easily and the cut was clean, of blood and what else the branch might have left behind.

But looking intently preoccupied with his actions - he’s found - tends to assure adults more of his abilities, then finishing something easy in two, maybe three practised movements. Now, he’s not incredibly perceptive - he has no idea what may be going on behind the man’s forehead, and certainly can’t tell when his demeanour is being picked apart - but he’s not dense to obvious reactions. So he’s had to compromise: fast work, but look like you’re really serious about it.

Not to mention, not many like being spoken to. Thomas adapts. It’s what he does best. Carefully picking out and up what levels of friendliness are appreciated, which are too intense, all for the sake of being left alone, to his pretences.

“Can’t say I have ever seen anyone who got bitten on their forehead,” a sliver of humour, genuine - sarcasm or not, he tends to take both options the same way, either by meeting humour with humour, or pretending to be blissfully unaware - as he pulls back and looks down at the other. “I’d avoid frowning for now,” he says, motioning to the furrow in the other’s brows. “You might cause the wound to start bleeding again, and I’d rather not have to give you stitches for something so minor.”

Medical seriousness. Ah, he misses the days when his patients were children. He’s never been too fond of working with adults - they’re much harder to get to do what they need to do - and he has a feeling or two that it might be mutual. He steps away and tilts his head. “Now, I know I said I don’t have any cartoon bandaids, but I will need to cover that up. It’s not bad, really, but if any more trees were to attack you, I’d rather not have a leaf get stuck in it. That is, unless you can assure me it won’t happen again.”

Personally Nathan holds more aversion to people in his personal space than he finds comfort in medics with a resolute determination in their job but, again, paranoia is the underlying tone to any camp so he has learned to simply wait out the prodding until it comes to an end. Which does nothing to keep him silence, quite the opposite really, as he is more talkative when uncomfortable and likely to use words to keep his thoughts from twisting up somewhere inside of his skull. 

"That's going to be difficult." It's not that his default expression is needlessly sour, no, in fact his default is almost passively flat, but of the emotions he tends to be more expressive in even thinking requires that contemplative pull of muscles that people often mistake for something negative. He rarely corrects them, being as how very few people have much of a habit of wearing a grin in life anymore and those that do are often just a little more off skewed from sanity than he even considers himself. 

But, it is what it is and he's more than willing to draw back more to his own space while the medic roams the small space with all the ease of stilted muscles and something just barely out of place. He doesn't ask, maybe the man loathes what he does, or people, or maybe it is a million reasons that anyone has any given day to be stiff and difficult to read but that makes the challenge more of a curious one. Nothing really to gain, short of another injury he never stays around Serotonin longer than only to ghost through, so nothing really there to uncover or weigh past his own distraction but if not for that even the slapped together day to day survival would have been less interesting. 

"Trees, low hanging lamps, the occasional door frame." Nathan replies without much enthusiasm to the words, there's a laundry list of scraps, cuts and bruises he's suffered between his own lack of grace and other objects putting themselves in his way; he doesn't see that changing at any time in the near future. But just the same he's less fond of having to deal with keeping up with a bandage, knowing full well the first restless night he'll lose it in the tossing and turning so common to his evenings, but he doesn't need to share that with the other man. 

"You're the only doctor, nurse? Whatever you are," he added with the awareness that very often people highly under-qualified fit the bill for any job at camps, "I've ever look that preoccupied." Maybe he should have the better manners to keep his opinions to himself but that never settles right with Nathan, not when there's always something that ticks a nerve and he feels the need to sort out some answer. "Which obviously doesn't matter, I probably wouldn't want to be all here myself if it was all blood and mangled people every day."

[nathan-meiger-blog]

vvarberry‌:

Out of all of the established settlements in the area that Warren was aware of, the medical facility was the closest to his home, and so it was the first to be scoped out. His supplies had been dwindling precariously for some time now– in recent weeks he has noticed a marked decrease in the amount of game in the immediate vicinity of his home and has thus started having to venture farther out to hunt. The lack of fresh meat has caused him to dig into his supply of dry and canned goods. And, a week ago, the final nail in his coffin– the pump in his well died, 600lbs of galvanized steel 200 feet below ground.

He has been putting off joining a group for years, but shit happens. Shit happened. If going it alone is no longer feasible, he’ll join a group if that’s in the best interests of him and Dog.

Shifting the weight of his pack, Warren carefully steps over an old felled pine. He gives it a cursory glance, checking for mushrooms as his companion nimbly hops over it. Immediately on the other side Dog’s nose is to the ground, ears erect. Instinctively he reaches for the Kimber strapped onto his hip, fingers barely having time to touch the cool metal before Dog is bounding away from him into the underbrush. This behavior is highly unusual— the mutt knows to stay close to him, especially when infected are near. When he catches their scent, his body tenses, the short fur along his spine bristling.

“What’s got you excited, boy? Huh?”

Warren follows, though with slightly less reckless abandon than his canine companion. He’s alert, just in case. When he sees that it’s another dog that’s got Dog so riled up, he starts to relax, but stops in his tracks when he sees that the dog is not alone and that there’s a man with him. Dog is happier than a pig in the sunshine, but Warren doesn’t share that enthusiasm.

“-…. That your dog?“ He asks, gesturing to the old hound with his chin. Making small  talk while he figures out if this guy’s friend or foe. "Been some time since I saw another one.”

"Frankie, get back here," Nathan mumbled when the dog lumbered through the leaves trying to make friends with the stranger. Which was fine, assuming said stranger wasn't teeming with whatever version of the virus it was that ate its' way through animals as quickly as it did humans; Frankie had good instincts but was also a dog, which put him at about the same level of cautious as a few people Nathan knew. Not that it made much different, the other dog was far too fascinating and Frankie just had to have a better look, nose around some and make far too much noise shuffling through the leaves in some vague attempt to play as much as his age allowed. 

Eyes drawn from the dog to the other man, Nathan's brow furrowed in contemplation before he spoke, as he knew many of the hunters scattered across the camps it was unlikely this one fell into that category and most other people stuck close to home. "Yeah, he's usually less of a pain though." 

Very occasionally he would come across someone else with some furry creature in tow but that was rare, survival was a struggle even without an extra mouth but there was something of an even trade in having another living creature around that was actually marginally pleased with your existence.  

Most everyone carried a gun if they were on their own, his eyes made a quick sweep of sots weapons were usually tucked away, cautious more for the sake of the dog than himself because the latter was far more likely to die by sheer damage from a wound and he didn't fully trust anyone at a first meeting. "Don't shoot my dog, he's an idiot but he's not going to attack you,  even if he did he's got like three teeth." It probably didn't need to be said, passive tone lingering almost to the point of it being comical, but catching people off guard verbally was usually enough to judge their basic reactions.

[nathan-meiger-blog]

parkerhqs-deactivated20191021‌:

Parker couldn’t stop the pout from forming on his lips. Even with his bow and arrow strapped to his back, he didn’t think to equip those at the first sound of trouble. This was why he was a nurse and not a hunter. He had to briefly wonder how he managed to survive the past few years–but, then again, he was always with a group of others that he trusted, who got him safely to the camp. He was probably lucky to have Nathan with him now. “I was startled,” Parker insisted, his cheeks still red. “I mean–it seemed like the best idea at the time.” 

"Well, at least it's still something with a pulse." He considered that somewhat of an improvement over what could have been the case. “Unless they’re already infected. I guess you could always stab them in the face with an arrow.” The bow was also questionable but likely more useful than Nathan himself considered it; too slow in his opinion, but maybe Parker would prove him wrong in that one day. Any day. Really. The medic wasn't hopeless, he was aware of danger at the very least, and Nathan couldn't pinpoint exactly why Parker was less uncomfortable to be around than most people he had the distinct joy of being in the company of but it was something, maybe because he couldn't stay a step or two ahead and grow bored when the other man was predictable. 

"Between here and the camps most of the dead are already cleared out anyway. You can hear them a mile away, so can Frankie." He mentioned with a duck lower to avoid a branch along a path he felt like he could have walked with his eyes closed, certain the dog was keeping pace nearby. "Probably wander in now and then but you have the overly ambitious hunters out here for target practice." Which Nathan personally had little desire to prove, he rarely carried a gun and considered his purpose to search, not play tag with zombies. 

"You're too good at your job." It was either a compliment or commentary, his expression didn't offer much to which. "They wouldn't keep sending you if you weren't. But then I’d miss my usual hike through the woods and these enlightening conversations." The humor to it was that he did enjoy the break, the oddity of Parker’s presence. 

[nathan-meiger-blog]

harpmeiger‌:

The world today was a strange phenomenon of events that had turned Harper into both the greatest and worst versions of herself. She was lot stronger, wiser, wittier, and a manipulator. It was the essence of what had allowed her to survive for this long on her own. So many were surprised when they realized how young she was and the depravities of sin that had come by her hands since. It was hard to imagine who she was before all of this had transpired. That was until she noticed what looked like a familiar face enter the camp she was residing in about a month ago. The guy resembled her brother. 

It was about two weeks before Harper was heading back for her senior year at boarding school when she contacted her youngest brother. Still to this day she doesn’t comprehend the extent of her mother’s decision leaving her father and three brothers behind on the west coast, stripping her away from memories and relationships that could have altered her life entirely. Not that the life she lived outside them was tragic, but there was always a sense of something missing in her life. So, behind her mother’s back, Harper made contact with her baby brother Corey. They had communicated via social media planning a time to meet up when she was on fall break. Unfortunately, that would never occur. However, in the midst of their correspondence they exchanged a few photos of their lives apart and that’s when she saw the faces of her two elder brothers. Now, it seemed like one of them, Nathan was here. 

Hey!” she called out to him. He was from another camp, bringing back one of there medics back yet again when he was heading out that Harper stopped him in his path. “This is gonna sound really bizarre, it’s even weird for me to say it, but I think you may be my brother. You’re Nathan right?” @nathan-meiger

He couldn't complain about the constant treks back and forth between camps, not when he was the one to volunteer himself for them. If nothing else they were reason enough to escape retreating to the four walls of his own room back at camp and drown in thoughts, probably something he would have continued even without the habit of keeping Parker from wandering getting himself eaten, but he never lingered long because as a whole he disliked being at the camp. Too much of it put him on an uneasy edge, nipped at the back of his thoughts. 

None of which was even remotely helped by the sudden appearance of the young woman staring him down, or rather staring up at him, and he strange claims. It was outlandish to even think anyone was still alive, much less people who had all but ceased to exist in his life log before the world had fallen all to hell. 

"What?" Knowing his name didn't mean much, people scattered through the camps did tend to know the names of hunters, but the determined tone to it made him uneasy. "Yes, it does sound bizarre, I have no idea who you are." His brow furrowed with the words, something to it made his thoughts tangled as he searched for recognition that wasn't there. She looked nothing like their father, barely like the rest of them, and his mother was only a shadow of presence Nathan had lost all sense of too long past to place. The flat impossibility of it though was obvious; how would she even know him in the first place when the last time he had seen his sister they were both just kids? The world was ultimately cruel and family was, to Nathan, a dead concept, what life took was not regained and having that steadiness shaken was deeply uncomfortable. 

[nathan-meiger-blog]

charlottegraves‌:

Charlotte hadn’t noticed Nathan’s injury at first, and it was perhaps the alarm she felt once it finally caught her eye that caused the question to jump out of her mouth before she had thought it through. Normally she defaulted to observe rather than confront, and she regretted the comment even more when he became defensive.

She was quick to reply with a, sorry, and an apologetic smile. “The sight of blood still gets to me a bit, even after all of this…” There was a moment where she grappled with the next thing to say, feeling like she should give some indication that she was not suspicious of him and all was well. In another life she could have turned on a charming smile and BS her way through the impromptu interaction.

“I nearly passed out in the field yesterday when I nicked myself on a tool.” An exaggeration, her stomach had merely done an uncomfortable flip, but it was something to say at least.

"It amazes me that people still even notice." The statement was too open-ended to point either direction over if he thought it good or bad, what did those concepts even amount to anymore? Blindness to the bloodshed made it easier to navigate but took away the human factor, at least until fear stepped back to remind everyone that they were all vastly more fragile than anyone cared to admit. "Still hits a nerve with me but I've also been too tired some days to notice someone's brains splattered on the ground in passing." It all came down to degrees of madness, perhaps, everyone had their own version of it to dwell.

He lifted a hand to rub at the cut, the sting of it not an unwanted one, half wondering if it would scar. Unimportant, yes, but one more scar just chipped away the feeling of the world before being real. "Paranoia isn't a bad trait, it's hard enough to even trust yourself sometimes around here."

Or maybe that was just an affliction he felt, playing tug of war constantly with a mind prone to changing the rules on him in an instant. Even then it was busy trying to read the disinterest in the woman, something to her that rang the usual bells of caution and curiosity; neither were easily dismissed by Nathan.

[nathan-meiger-blog]

msplacedsrvor‌:

Seemingly not in the least bit discouraged by the other’s rather… unaffected response to his words - safe for that first line, which sends a tiny jab of guilt into him, having an implication he didn’t mean to make so readily pointed out to him - Thomas stops in front of him. Foregoing to even consider reclaiming his previous seating position - he may be considered a tall man himself, but the other beats him by just enough inches that standing just seems like the easier option - Thomas places the small box onto the desk nearby.

It was hardly the size of a respectable medkit, resembling more just the kind of box one would hold cigarettes in if so inclined, or needles and pins. But it would serve its purpose, seeing that Thomas only really needed the cotton balls within it. Reaching for a water bottle he’d left on the furniture’s wooden surface, Thomas opens the box with his free hand and resumes his smiling at the other.

The tone the other’s few lines of response carried should in on itself deter him from trying to maintain the light-hearted atmosphere he set out with. But he can’t help it. His mood is better than it has been in days, he seems focused, he feels real, and… well, old habits just die hard. Because while he’s been working with adults for long enough now that his prodding and poking has become harsher and more insistent, he’s also used to working with children for longer, long enough that the need to soothe his ‘patient’ by making the situation appear light and the atmosphere friendly feels like second nature.

“I’ll be done in a second, I’ll just use some water to wipe the blood away,” he lifts a cotton ball as if wanting to prove his statement. Technically, he could even skip the cotton ball and just ask the male to thoroughly wash his face, worry about any further cleaning after, but this way he’s going to feel like he actually did something. “And I don’t think anyone meant to imply anything at all when they sent you here. Panic and paranoia go hand in hand these days, have one and you cause the other. And the moment people are panicked, all rational thinking tends to leave.”

Bedside manner is a cultivated skill, he couldn't see himself in any medical field because that was practically an incomprehensible foreign language to Nathan. Impressive, given that he was in fact bilingual already, his degree of certainty in ability to put people at ease was that strong. Funny how the sort of to the point recounting of facts that did tend to ease his thoughts actually was something most people found less than comforting. Nathan didn't attempt to make sense of what worked for other people, just accepted it for it was and went on with his day.  But the nurse, or whatever he might have been in that past life of normality, wasn't exactly a master at the art of verbal reassurance. All the more entertaining though, on some level; he preferred the realistic terms of it. 

The smile that remained stuck in place was unnerving though, it did nothing to match the rest of the man or his reserved motions that looked more like practiced response than entirely natural. Maybe that was what happened though, day after day staring down the injured and dying in a ruined world could make even the most resolved person fall into autopilot to get through what, sadly, must have fallen into repetitive circumstances. 

The thought left him feeling a bit uncomfortable all over again, debating if even the ones who devoted their attention to patching up the cuts and breaks grew so dulled to it that something faded away in their own capacity to see people when they looked at those wounds. Was the deflection of recycled humor what passed for a shield to hide behind, as it couldn't have been easy watching people torn apart day after day. 

"It's fine, everyone here would be crazy not to be paranoid anyway." He agreed without much weight to the words, it was just the truth anymore when suspicion kept people alive. "Do you see a lot of people who get bitten just on their forehead though?" The furrow of his brow was either humor or the beginnings of sarcasm, both generally had the same look to them when it came to Nathan. 

He was more invested in watching the other man wander the small space, plucking up necessities and going through the motions in a way that seemed mechanical, it was always interesting just what came down to muscle memory with enough time. Most people didn't care much for being studied but at the end of the world normal social manners didn't exactly take high priority, and with Nathan they never really had when his attention fixed on something.

[nathan-meiger-blog]

parkerhqs‌:

@nathan-meiger

“Thanks for walking me back,” Parker said, his voice unusually soft for the other man. He had gone over to the Saints camp to help with their smaller medical staff, something he did quite often. And, for some reason, the hunter volunteered to escort him back to Serotonin every time. Parker wasn’t sure why, though he supposed it was because he was quite easy to tease and rile up. He didn’t really mind Nathan, however–and it was in spite of the man’s strange personality. 

They were trudging through some tall grass when Parker heard a rustle in some bushes nearby, and he was startled, nearly yelping as he rushed over to Nathan, wrapping his arms around the blonde. “Jeez, I thought I heard something,” Parker whispered, but when he realized that he was still holding onto the other, he hastily let go, heat rising into his cheeks. “M-my bad.” 

"You really shouldn't go anywhere unsupervised," he offered the stray comment because Parker ruffled easily and it was entertaining but it was also oddly comforting. Most people faded in and out of Nathan's sense of reality easily unless they were vivid enough to be difficult to ignore and Parker certainly was that. 

There was a scale when it came to survival; on one side were the types with sound knowledge and skills and on the other ones with flat out dumb luck that got them by. Nathan tended to consider himself somewhere in the middle and a bit towards the luck side but Parker, well, he wasn't sure the other man was even on the scale at all. It had become an unspoken agreement of sorts, making certain he continued to stay among the living.  And, as per usual, any trek with the other man was something of an adventure.

The instant his personal space was no longer personal Nathan only stopped, tipped his eyes upward and shook his head. He would have found it comical to watch, if it had happened to someone else. "Yes, and if it had been something with teeth now we'd both be dead." There was no anger, there was no point in anger when it came to most situations, but there was commentary as he resumed the walk. "That's your first reflex? Grab the nearest thing with a pulse?" His tone was, in fact, curiously bemused as he cast a sideways glance at him.

[nathan-meiger-blog]

oilgut‌:

she’s quicker ——- just. slender fingers snatch the small shiny object before her counterpart has their chance, firmly in her tight grasp.  “ nuh-uh. finders keepers, angel. ”  truly, val doesn’t even really need it. but they want it, so now, she does too. she’s annoying, like that. but not entirely unreasonable, she might be willing to part with it… for the right price.  “ unless, y’know … you wanna make me an offer? ”  is she even being serious? it’s always hard to tell.

For an instant Nathan tenses, something deeply irritating to watching her snatch the lighter up just short of his grasp. More than only irritating, it's nearly an instant of panic before being shoved back down into place. But he does need it, if it were just a piece of plastic junk he wouldn't bother with the protest but it's not; coming across one crafted out of metal to last, much less be refilled, had been sheer luck and not likely to strike twice.  

"It's just a lighter, barely worth anything." Nathan replies with forced calm, downplaying the value of the object but something in the woman's eyes tells him she already knows that trick and is intent on playing her little game. What did he even have to offer? Practically nothing because at any given time it's only that lighter and a few carefully rationed cigarettes tucked away somewhere on him.

[nathan-meiger-blog]

sepulcrums‌:

“ So there’s this little convenience store down the street –– nobody really knew it was even there, so I’m betting they still don’t. The owners lived on the second floor so if anything, THEY might be there. ” He hitches the empty duffel up on his shoulders, tightening the strap across his chest for safety. He would never admit it out loud, and especially not to Nathan, but he was glad he wasn’t out here alone. It was comforting to be with someone else, even if they were just as incompetent as he was. Maybe less. Maybe more. Time would tell. “ So keep an eye out or else it might be your eye in the palm of my hand. ”

It was a very ill-conceived idea; in the best situation houses and secluded shops were more dangerous because the occupants often were still lurking, dead and vicious, and most hunters wouldn't risk it. The possibility of the idea turning sideways was a strong one but, still, it was a matter of calculating the worth because Declan was right and finding any place otherwise untouched was harder and harder. He did his job, he brought back every useful item to the camp he came across and the rest he returned with fell to the realms of things unimportant except for the value that was more personal. Sometimes survival came down to just having a tiny reminder of why anyone wanted to keep going; an abandoned store could have checked off a good part of that list for several people in one trip. 

"Charming statements like that are, I'm assuming, why everyone else said no." Nathan didn't care much either way, abrasive people didn't faze him so long as they knew what they were doing and Declan at least looked the part. There is a nod with the words though, agreement, and the moment spared in adjusting his own pack in preparation for that shift of plans. "As threats go that's the strangest I've heard in a while."

[nathan-meiger-blog]

[ @vvarberry ]

The forest was never quiet, it was a world very much outside the one Nathan had known in his life before the end, a life where birds chirping was lost in the metallic hum of traffic and leaves crunched only in oily piles along busy sidewalks. He had never realized how loud nature was until a few years being forced to exist in its' space had taught him how truly unnerving it could be. Every sound had been committed to memory, obsessively, his strict focus would accept not less when it came to staying alive. Frankie's shuffling carved a path through the fallen bits of orange and gold, something about the crisp turn in the air had brought out some of the faded youth in the mutt. Snuffling after insects and digging at spots, Nathan had to call him back time and again but was content to let the dog enjoy the outing since they weren't very far from camp.  

When Frankie paused, a throaty grumble sounding, not the deeper reverberation that marked a growl from the old dog it sent Nathan's eyes trailing around them but came up with only the usual shift of shadows that came with the trees swaying. It wasn't any shambling corpses or roaming nightmares, no, the scent of those would have sent the dog into a tense stance. Just the same, it was probably best not to linger, even if he had to reach for the worn collar at Frankie's neck to give him a tug back towards the direction of camp before he would move from the spot. 

Barely half a dozen steps though and Frankie was a sudden blur past him, on the trail of something for a moment and slowing to a stop the next with ears perked high, circling with more energy than he'd seen from the dog in a while.

[nathan-meiger-blog]

scintamclia‌:

while amelia was responsible for leading the entirety of the saints, along with the help of william, she was always found with the medics patching up anyone who came through. and nathan, well she kept a good eye on her hunters, to say the least. “ don’t care what you say, i’m double checking. i can’t let an outbreak happen here, you know that. “ she raised no tone, but kept her brows perked as she moved to prod around the lash, gentle touches checking for infection. 

“ fine, “ she sighs, hands now moving to grab a bandage and stitch set. “ i believe you. but you need to pay more attention to your surroundings. if a branch can get you, so can the infected. “ once again, momma bear came out to play.

While it wasn't that he didn't have a marginal amount of respect for Amelia and William both for the fact that they kept people alive it didn't stop Nathan from keeping a curious eye on them much of the time. Some of that uneasiness was impossible to shake, he had very little left to lose other than his own life but knowing how leadership gone astray had cost him too much in the past kept him cautious and probably a little less forgiving than some in the camp. 

"You really think I would come back here if I thought I was infected?" He tested her, both curious to see if she was willing to voice how grave an idea that was and weigh her thoughts on him. "I'm not that much of an asshole; I do know when to go off and die somewhere." It was a flat concept but one Nathan had never felt any need to toy with; infection had no cure yet and other people could choose to do what they wished but the day he knew the virus was rotting in his blood would be the last one she would ever see him. 

"I still have my eye, and now a healthy dislike for oak trees." He trailed off, knowing she was going to chide him and carry on like he was some clumsy child. Which, clumsy, yes, but only childish when that stubborn streak flared. "I can't exactly manage being shorter." It wasn't much of a protest though, she was going to hem and hen and over things, it wasn't an unpleasant fact, just one he wasn't used to from people.

[nathan-meiger-blog]

msplacedsrvor‌:

He can’t help it, that line elicits a snort out of him. This is by far the closest to having a natural element that Thomas has been able to get to in the last four years. Sitting on a stool - avoiding the other’s legs - in front of an injured hunter, expert hands brushing away hair and intrusive fingers prodding for a seemingly unnecessary amount of time and with a seemingly unnecessary amount of force.

It was everyday life for him now, and that he gets to call anything ‘everyday life’ nowadays is a miracle on its own. One he doesn’t know whether to be grateful for or not, considering the implications. What isn’t as common of an occurrence, though, is to have to ‘treat’ a hunter from another camp, for an injury that had instilled momentary panic in whoever it is that had sent him to him, but turned out to be quite the mood-lifter, considering what most injuries look like.

Especially considering Thomas was told he should check whether this particular injury was the promise of a soon-to-be threat. So while he does absolutely not mean to laugh at the other, having to treat such a tiny thing caused by Mother Nature for once, rather than a deformed memory of a human, seriously… It was like waking up every day to blood on your porch and seeing a flower resting on top of it one morning. Maybe that’s also the reason he’s so willing to believe it.

Dropping his hand back into his lap, Thomas retreats from the other’s personal space - and seriously, you work in the medical field long enough, you stop knowing what that is - and regards him with guarded amusement. “Good thing that doesn’t seem to be the case, then. Who knows if we’re equipped to fight off trees. Maybe you should take a different route to get here next time. You caused quite some panic, the looks on the faces I saw made me wonder whether I had to quarantine you when you walked in.”

And with that he stands up and moves away, retrieving one of the smaller medkits from further into the room. When he returns, he seems to attempt a light-hearted retort. “You aren’t even bleeding anymore. I’ll clean it in a moment, but I can’t promise you any cartoon bandaids.”

Normally Nathan reserved a certain amount of reasonable scrutiny for anyone he happened across but the other man had such a lack of sharp edges that it seemed pointless. Which probably meant he was one of those who stumbled through the end of the world and still held some stray hope of things getting better, but to each their own and whatever. Nathan wasn't one to get too invested in the existence of others until he had a reason to and being prodded at over an injury that, admittedly, was laughable had yet to be reason enough. It wasn't such a terrible fault, lack of the sort of usual determined doom and gloom that ate at most people, but it was out of place just enough to keep his attention and make the stranger a curious subject to study. 

The very idea of being forced to stay there at camp was one that stirred up discomfort, there were reasons Nathan rarely traveled to Serotonin and it had nothing to do with the people. He did, actually, envy some of the ease afforded to the occupants when it came to the setup of camp and the supplies, the luxury of consistent electricity and the like but the cost of it for him personally would have been too much anxiety to ever rest peacefully.

It was difficult enough to keep it in check even with four walls offering distance from the idea, his nerves still felt unraveled at the very edges, all the more reason to distance himself from the present, disjointed from his place in it and a bit hazy-eyed. 

"I love the implication that I would come back into any camp knowing I'd been attacked." Bland, his tone, he was very much a realist in that infection was death and that was what it came down to in no uncertain terms. He might have had a long list of faults but purposely bringing disaster to people was a little extreme. "I get it though, paranoia is a second language anymore." He couldn't blame people, especially not the camps where there was a condensed population, his thin nerves were just needling. 

"You don't have to do that, if I get gangrene from a tree I'm a worse survivor than I thought." Of course the underlying logic was more to the area of knowing medical supplies were always thin because he came from the camp that traded them, a scratch felt like something wasteful to use them on. But Nathan wasn’t comfortable with voicing that opinion directly.

[nathan-meiger-blog]

ofjosiahs‌:

  he  wasn’t  known  for  being  relatively  trusting  —–    but  who  was  these  days  .  blue  eyes  had  caught  his  attention  ,  and  his  gaze  straightened  forward  with  a  point  barrel  .  it  wasn’t  until  the  conclusion  of  familiarity  struck  his  subconscious  ,  does  he  lower  the  weapon  .  “  nathan  ? ”  he  remembered  everything  ;  the  names  ,  the  faces  .  people  surviving  ,  all  their  memories  imprinted  in  his  head  ,  drifting  into  nightmares  ;  into  dreams  .  he  remembered  how  they  died  ,  each  and  every  one  of  them  .  he  remembered  the  gurgling  when  they  ultimately  came  back  ,  only  for  josiah  to  selflessly  put  them  back  in  the  ground  .  his  brows  furrowed  ,  and  his  gaze  drifted  back  ,  behind  the  other  male’s  frame  ,  looking  for  another  that  should  have  trailed  closely  behind  him  .  weapons  are  down  ,  and  his  breath  leaves  his  lungs  in  an  reflection  of  a sigh  .  releif  ;  he  hadn’t  felt  that  in  a while  .  “where’s  corey  ?” and  the  moment  the  question surpassed  chapped  lips  ,  he’d  regretted  it  ;  silence  towering  the  space  between  them  .  @nathan-meiger

It was a strange thing, not always being able to trust your own thoughts and memories, there were days when Nathan lamented the loss of his camera the way some might have an old friend because he knew at least the photos held something real. More and more often he found himself unsteady over how much of the past and the people in it had truly been there and what parts had been the desperate attempts of his mind to bridge gaps and give false security. It was always jolting to cross paths with anyone that was from the time frame before finding The Saints, those fragments of a lifetime ago. 

That weapon pointed at his face and the person behind, both were present in the moment and jarring. How long had it been since he'd seen Josiah? There wasn't a number of days he could put to it but there was familiarity. Enough to let some of the tension from his shoulders weaken and the hollow stare dissolve into surprise. But why should there have been any? It was likely more shocking that he was alive than the other man, given how woefully inept he had been at the last time they had traveled together. About the only survival instinct Nathan had in the beginning was knowing it was smarter to be around people who had a better grasp of getting by than himself.

He almost spoke but the question opened up that graveyard in his thoughts, a mix of weary guilt and flat anger over anyone voicing that name anymore. It was something important, it was a memory he did not share, and for an instant he could have hated the other mentioning his brother. That was the problem with ghosts, they always came back to haunt. The anger crept out of his eyes though, his voice, and left only a sticky sort of grit behind that made his mouth dry. "We didn't exactly pick the right place to hang around too long."  A choice that, still, felt as though it was entirely on his shoulders. 

"I guess you managed better than that." For the moment he didn't have the will to steel himself, just some small shred of gratitude over the fact that not all of the past was turned to dust.

[nathan-meiger-blog]

"It's not a bite or a scratch." The insistence was no less even for the words being mumbled, it was shocking that his eyes did roll with it but Nathan was trying not to hit more raw nerves and set off the person opposite of him while they scrutinized a new slash splitting the skin just above his left eye. "Tree limb, I am closer to some of those than other people." 

Not at all did it help that his usual default was not being the most graceful on his feet, most people had the sense not to smack their skull on low hanging limbs and that was all well and good but most people were also not tall enough to hit the higher ones that were easier to misjudge either. And any hint of blood or cut, scratch of possible infection, well, that always brought up questions. Did anyone actually think he was selfish enough to go back around people if infected? Yeah, probably.  It was already uncomfortable enough admitting the injury was his own fault but the prodding at it certainly did not help. 

Shutting the one eye, his other focused away from the face staring him down, likely weighing the words and the truth to them, Nathan's lips drew back into a thin line. "Unless that oak tree has started snacking on the locals I'm pretty sure I'm not a hazard."

[nathan-meiger-blog]

‘ YOU TURNED A CORNER ON THAT ONE PRETTY QUICK. ’

“Just saying that we don’t know that small, furry animals can’t turn into flesh-eating, facing biting monsters at any given moment. I’m not a scientist, how the fuck would I know?” It feels like a valid point, the world was upside down and really was it all that far of a stretch to wonder if the virus could jump ship over to other creatures? “It was either really pissed off, even by squirrel standards, or trying to kill us; either way I have no regrets.” 

“So no, I’m also not eating it.You want zombie squirrel flu though, you go right ahead.” In case that wasn’t clear.