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deepseawritings · 7 years

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So a certain someone was egging me to write again after a throwaway comment on one of her posts (don’t get mistaken, I’m easy to convince and I love it when people’s so enthusiastic XD). And then the other night I couldn’t sleep and in a bout of madness I started writing. Get prepared for a crack fic with a side dish of crack.

The case of the missing boots

Ah, he had missed this! That sense of freedom and dread when you walked alone the treacherous paths of the Zone was strangely addictive.

Technically speaking his office on Cordon's outpost was also part of the Zone, but it was a watered down version of the real experience. Degtyarev enjoyed its harshness to a certain degree, and most of all he enjoyed seeing his old friends, the camaraderie between stalkers who unite to survive the Zone's cruel tricks. The excuse of meeting up with Strelok was only that, an excuse. There was no urgent intel to gather as he may have hinted to the newly promoted Major Tarasov before leaving him in charge of Cordon; he just wanted to get out and check on his old friend. And conveniently enough, the designated meeting point was Yanov.

So Degtyarev dug out his old stalker gear, since he had the feeling trotting around in military uniform wouldn't garner him much sympathy, and set on an adventure of his own. Just like the old times!

After a few days of travel he finally arrived to Yanov. He was pleased to note that not much had changed in all this time. The marshes were still full of mutants, Topol was still running errands for the scientists, and the echo of the fights between Duty and Freedom patrols was still the background music no one had asked for. It was like coming home!

Degtyarev was ecstatic nobody treated him differently, even if everyone and their mothers knew he was now in charge of the Cordon outpost. It was refreshing to treat with people that didn't immediately answer with a salute and a Yes sir, even if they were total assholes like Snag. What possessed Degtyarev to talk with him he had no idea, the stalker always irritated him. But meeting Vano, and Strider, and Zulu and many others was nice. Which is why he felt so betrayed when he woke up next morning and saw his boots were missing.

Last night he retired late to Yanov Station's basement, found a mattress in which to fall on, took his boots off and slept like the dead until the next morning. And then he saw his boots weren't waiting for him where he left them. In fact the boots weren't anywhere: not in that spot, nor in his backpack, nor stashed in some dark corner of the station. This wasn't a mere prank, it was theft. And Degtyarev didn't like thieves, so he did the only sensible thing he could think of: he closed off Yano Station until he found the culprit.

After strong-arming both Loki and Shulga to cooperate, all of Yanov's stalkers were assembled on the main bar area, while a barefoot, sock clad Degtyarev ambled up and down like he was trying to dig a trench in the floor.

"You'll be wondering why I gathered you all," Degtyarev addressed the sea of faces in front of him. Some looked still sleepy, others curious and some already bored.

"Because your boots disappeared!" Someone on the back row shouted. Of course it was Yar, nosy old bugger always knew what was going on.

All the stalkers swivelled at once to look at Snag, who had the gall to look affronted by their reaction. "Don't look at me! Why would I want a pair of stinky boots? Besides, I don't go around stealing..." The last part was added like an afterthought, lacking conviction.

A murmur of dissent spread around, with some stalkers airing their grievances and suspicions about Snag, until Degtyarev smashed his palm against the nearest table to him.

"Unless all those things disappeared last night too, now's not the time for it!"

A stalker in the crowd raised his hand, like a student asking for his teacher. Degtyarev looked at him. "Yes, Mitay?"

"Where and when did you last see the boots?"

Thank god someone was finally taking this seriously. "Last night when I left them by the side of my mattress."

"You take out your boots to sleep?"

That question, asked by someone he didn't identify, quickly sparked a debate amongst the stalkers, who were divided in two camps: those who always slept with their boots on and those who took the boots out when they weren't sleeping outside.

"Well if you left your boots lying around unprotected it's normal someone stole them, you were tempting fate dude." This stellar opinion was voiced by a loner famous for his deals with Jack’s bandit group. He didn’t quite remember his name now, but it didn’t matter because Degtyarev wasn’t planning on speaking with him ever again.

"Are you saying he had it coming because he was tempting thieves, leaving the boots by his side while he slept?" Vano squinted his eyes at him like he couldn't believe his ears, and Degtyarev shared that sentiment.

"Only a thief would think like that!" Gavrilenko said, and soon people started to point his fingers at the other man as the boot thief.

"I was only saying he should have been more careful!"

Degtyarev decided to intervene before things got out of hand. As entertaining as it was to see everyone ganging up on that idiot, it wasn't conducive to finding his boots. "Enough! In the future think before you open your mouth. Or better yet, don’t speak again."

"Degtyarev," Strider used the recently achieved quiet to speak up for the first time. "This morning I heard Trapper talking with Hawaiian about boots."

Somehow his emotionless delivery of it made the sentence sound strangely accusing. Degtyarev looked at the gobsmacked and unusually quiet trader to see what he had to say in his defence.

"That's not what it looks like!" Hawaiian squeaked, looking pleadingly at Trapper. "He asked me if I had any boots to sell him!"

"Yeah. Mine's are half melted, I stepped into a Fruit Punch yesterday," the hunter confirmed Hawaiian's story.

And they were back to square one. This was getting nowhere. At this rate he would never find his boots. He'd have to go meet Strelok barefoot... Or apparently Strelok decided to come for him. The small stalker appeared from the corridor leading to Bonesetter's office, like it was the most normal thing in the world to pop inside a supposedly closed off building.

"Strelok?" Degtyarev was pretty sure he wasn't imagining it, but to say he was surprised would be an understatement. Strelok just appeared out of nowhere carrying a can of energy drink.

"What's up dude." He greeted him nonchalantly and took a swig from his drink.

"How did you get in?" Degtyarev couldn't be more confused if he tried.

"The back door."

The back door. The fucking back doors. Shit, he felt like moron! How come that when securing the station no one remembered to check the back doors? In his defence, neither Loki nor Shulga thought about it either.

Strelok left the can on the table and looked at the gaggle of assembled stalkers. "What's going on?"

Before he could answer that, something impacted against the main door with a rather noisy CLONK. The reaction was immediate, all the stalkers drew their weapons and aimed at the door, waiting for the next attack. And waited.

And when he was bored to wait Degtyarev opened the double doors and poked his head out. A lone boot was lying in the ground right in front of the entrance. What the hell?

There was a rustle of leaves and then something dark and boot shaped came flying from behind a nearby bush and hit Degtyarev in the head, accompanied by a cry of "A NU CHEEKI BREEKI I V DAMKE!"

At least a dozen stalkers reacted to such unmistakeable cry and went out in response to it, eager to face their enemy once more.

"Oh blyat! Run Vanya run!" One of them yelled.

Two guys dressed in worn tracksuit pants and wearing balaclavas ducked out from behind a bush and started running like the devil was after them.

"I fucking told ya this was a bad idea!" Complained the same one as before.

"You dared me to do it Mitka!"

Strelok aimed his SGI-5k to the bandits feet and shot to the ground they had stood moments ago, making them yell obscenities and run faster. On his part Degtyarev stared at his boots lying on the dust and tried to find solace in the fact that surely the day couldn't get any weirder.

Author’s note: Apart from this I wrote another piece (completely unrelated to this one). I’m still editing the mess, because apart from writing nonesense like this, being sleep deprived means I make more typos than usual.

#s.t.a.l.k.e.r.#fanfic #degtyarev #Strelok #crack fic

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