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Tricky grinned at the red-painted walls, mangled bodies strewn across the dark grey floor. It thought the deep red that painted the walls was a nice change from the monotony of Nevada, a nice change from sprawling grey landscapes.
The clown grabbed one of the bloody corpses, a chunk of their head missing halfway across the room. The clown held exposed flesh up to its mouth, taking another chunk of the grunt’s head with its sharp, exposed teeth. The perks of having an… extremely disfigured jaw--putting it kindly--was that Tricky could basically unhinge its jaw to fit the whole top of the grunt’s skull in it’s mouth like a horrible, fleshy lollipop.
It was refreshing, eating for the first time in probably days-- it was hard to keep track of time when the sun didn’t exist. Tricky didn’t have a permanent base either, it hopped from hideout to hideout. Meaning it had no reliable food storage. It wasn’t Tricky’s first time doing this either, the taste and texture of raw flesh no longer foriegn in its mouth, blood dribbling down its chin and on to the lab coat it wears. Flesh no longer made it sick.
Tricky was too consumed in consuming to hear the door open, a familiar figure stepping into the room. Hank’s eyes went wide beneath his red goggles, flinching at the horrible crunch of Tricky’s jaw finally closing around the grunt’s skull. Blood and gore didn’t freak him out at all, it came with the job he had. They didn’t expect Tricky to be here, let alone eating some grunt. “Uhm..”
Tricky spun around, the grunt still in it’s now closed mouth, at Hank’s words. It grinned as best it could, wrangling the grunt around until the body broke away.
“HAAAANK!”
Tricky spoke with a full mouth, shaking the almost-headless corpse in uncontained excitement. What in the fresh fuck.
The loud crunches and squelches of Tricky chewing filled the room for a moment, Hank’s face contorting in pure disgust. The sight didn’t bother him but the sound sure did.
“HANK!” Tricky turned away for a moment to grab a chunk of a different grunt’s flesh that was plastered to the wall, holding it a little too close to Hank for his liking. They could smell the rot through their mask, and it smelled horrible.
“EAT IT. EAT!!”
Tricky’s voice was loud and hoarse, garbled and glitchy from the exposed muscle and flesh that made up most of its lower jaw and the half-working improbability drive in it’s skull.
“I’m not eating that.“
Hank shoved Tricky’s hand away, watching as the clown visibly saddened.
“HAAANKK…”
Tricky whined, but stuffed the fleshy offering into its own mouth anyways. Blood dribbled down it’s chin once more. Hank felt sick.
“You've really lost your shit, huh.”
They almost pitied the clown, despite the figurative (and literal) hell it put him through. Tricky was so far from human, did the sight unfolding before him even count as cannibalism? Was the torn lab coat hanging from its body Tricky’s last shreds of humanity, slowly falling away from… whatever the fuck it truly was?
Hank shook his head, this wasn't the right time to get poetic. Hank’s mind was racing as he stood frozen in place, wishing they had never walked into this room.
Tricky stood up, and at full height it came up to around Hank’s neck, but it was slouched from the injuries and mutations Tricky had gone through. It’s arms hung limply when not being used, shoulders hunched forwards in a way that amplified the arch of its spine.
Analysing Tricky’s horrible posture was a quick distraction from the fact that it was walking towards him in slow, limping steps that Hank knew to be an act. Tricky could move far faster and smoother under the influence of the portable improbability drive. He was only scared because of how underprepared they were, not having expected to see Tricky. Or maybe it was the fact that Tricky settled comfortably into a gorey version of the uncanny valley. It was just barely humanoid, just enough for the passing thought of ‘that was human at one point’ and for some reason that was what got to Hank.
The thought of what Tricky must’ve gone through to look like that sent shivers down Hank's spine. Tricky was in front of him now, something like a smile twisting on it’s mangled jaw. He backed up a few steps, but it took a step towards him.
“What do you want?”
“EAT!!”
Why was Tricky trying to share its food with Hank? It made no sense. The last time they saw each other Hank got thrown into a wall so hard that he most definitely cracked a few ribs. Tricky never failed to confuse Hank, flipping from wanting him dead to offering it’s food to them, a resource so scarce in the Nevada wasteland that Hank has watched peaceful people kill and die over it. Not to mention that food was raw flesh that's been sitting out for what seems like an hour now.
Tricky grabbed Hanl by the arm, dragging him towards the gorey mess that painted most of the room a deep crimson. It had been a while since Hank ate last, the offer was tempting. But he knew they’d end up getting sick from raw grunt flesh. Don’t ask how Hank knew that; you don't want to know.
Tricky shoved Hank down with surprising force, the mercenary’s knees buckling as they fell to the floor. Blood seeped into his pants. Ew. Tricky pulled a grunt over and set it between them, sitting across from Hank on its knees. Utter confusion clouded Hank’s mind, watching Tricky stare at him.
“EAT?”
Tricky offered again, motioning down at the dead grunt between them. Hank shook his head. That made Tricky angry. A noise left it’s throat that was probably supposed to be a growl, but came out sounding like an angry whine. Hank could easily kill Tricky like this, just attack it out of the blue and be over and done with it. But he didn’t-- for some odd reason he found himself unable to hurt it, despite having done so several times in the past.
“Why do you want me to eat? I’ll get sick. Are you trying to poison me?”
Cannibalism wasn’t uncommon in Nevada. The Agency hoarded most of the available food for soldiers. Maybe it was to entice neutral grunts into joining. Maybe it was to set anyone fighting the Agency at a disadvantage, as raw grunt flesh basically gives you severe food poisoning with a side of insanity. Why it does that, no one knows.
Tricky deflated, beginning to eat by itself, using its claws to gouge out chunks of grunt meat and sadly shovel it into its mouth. Hank was unmoving, stuck in place by some force that pitied the creature. He wasn’t going to eat, not at all, but maybe he’d stay.
Safety was nice every once in a blue moon, even if it's watching your sworn enemy eat flesh in the grossest way possible.