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From the Zone with love	By : deepsearuin Category: +S through Z > S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadows of Chernobyl Views: 943 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own S.T.A.L.K.E.R., nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Okay, so I wrote this inspired by grogulec and her amazing art over at tumblr (and because Strelok with glasses is just great). This fic is dedicated to her :)
# 1
His hideout might be small and mostly empty, but it was his place and Strelok felt fiercely protective of it. Never before had he shared its location with another stalker, but Ghost was his friend. At least he hoped so, he'd never been very good at this making friends business.
They had been working together for a while. Ghost was on a self-imposed mission to kill the leader of a cult named Final Day. It didn't sound foreboding at all, right? Ghost and Strelok joined up forces after Strelok inadvertently swooped in, killed a whole patrol ofFinal Day singlehandedly, and went away with the PDA Ghost was after.
And now they were at Strelok's hideout, pouring over different maps and clues they had collected, trying to find where Final Day's main base was hidden. After hours at it, Strelok's eyes were almost screaming for help, so he caved in and took out his reading glasses. Ghost's ongoing rant came to a sudden end.
"Dude, you look like my math teacher," Ghost said with an amused smile.
Schooling his face in a stern mask Strelok fixed him with an inquisitive glare. "And where is your homework young man?"
They both broke down laughing, Ghost wheezing between the guffaws that his impression had been uncannily similar.
In hindsight, Strelok would say it was on some point of that night, between planning their assault and their terrible jokes, that they truly became friends.
# 2
The 100 Rads was unusually empty that day. Just a couple of hard drinkers -almost a fixture of the place- were there, half passed out on the counter. And on a secluded table two stalkers tried to cheer up their companion.
"Sorry mate," Fang said for the third time that morning. "I really had no idea you wore glasses."
"I know, it's alright." Strelok knew it had been accident.
Fang had shoved him out of the way of an angry pseudo-dog and sent him crashing against a wall of rocks. Which was fine, because the backpack softened the impact. However nothing saved his glasses, safely stashed in the backpack, from the collision against solid rock. Strelok wasn't mad at Fang, after all he'd saved him from the pseudo-dog, but couldn't help looking forlornly at his glasses. Well, what was left of them.
"How come I've never seen you with the glasses before? Don't you need them to see?"
"I've only seen him use them to read," Ghost piped in. "He looks like a nerd with them."
Strelok would feel insulted if it wasn't for the fondness in Ghost's words. That, and he wasn't too busy contemplating his broken and twisted glasses.
"If you find lenses cand you still use them?" Fang eyed the two glassless halves Strelok was toying with.
"He could use them as monocles."
Ghost's ridiculous suggestion made Strelok snap out of his misery. "Just invite me to a drink and let's forget this."
His proposal was met with raucous approval, and Fang ended up paying for all Strelok's booze, as compensation he said.
Nevertheless, a week later Strelok woke up one day and found his glasses waiting for him on top of his backpack. Someone had welded both halves together and replaced the missing lenses. They were still a bit twisted in places, stiff in others, and overall ugly as fuck; and the lenses were not quite right. Nevertheless Strelok kept them, even when he later found a more functional replacement.
# 3
The amount of bandits at the Skadovsk was quite alarming. Nobody attacked anybody while on the old ship, but bandits and stalkers kept each to one side of the room, nervously eyeing at the other side while the blowout grew in intensity outside.
Strelok hated bandits with a fiery passion. However he understood the necessity of a truce of sorts in places like the Skadovsk. There certainly weren't many places in Zatonto hide during a blowout.
Scar wasn't shy about his dislike of bandits either, constantly glaring at Sultan and his men. Understandable, considering Sultan's guys had been dogging their steps for days with the intent to rob them or worse. Scar and he had gained quite the reputation as bandit killers, and the mercenary's furious glare was making them nervous. Strelok could swear he even saw one of those balaclava wearing idiots making a motion to grab his pistol.
"Why don't you go to see if Nimble has the weapon you asked for?" Strelok suggested, not wanting to see how the Skadovsk turned into a bloody battlefield.
Throwing one last calculating look in Sultan's direction, Scar went upstairs to negotiate with his old Clear Sky pal. Strelok had trouble imagining Nimble in Clear Sky's uniform. He liked the guy but distrusted Clear Sky for obvious reasons. He still didn't know how he felt about Scar either. When he met the mercenary he immediately recognised him. He despised Scar and the only thing that kept him from putting a bullet in him was... well, he wasn't sure. Perhaps it had been Degtyarev's presence, at least until he'd been called back by the top brass.
Against all odds, Scar and Strelok actually worked well together. It was hard to keep hating someone's guts when you were saving each other's skins on a daily basis. So while he might not like the mercenary very much, the rage his presence used to inspire had died down. Besides, they found a common objective in fighting the bandits who foolishly kept ambushing them.
The blowout raged outside and the ship shook under the pounding of the psy energy storm. To pass the time Strelok decided to organize his bag and see what he could sell, he was overburdened with all the ammo he compulsively hoarded. He found a pierced can of Tourist's Delight and bits of canned meat spread all over the contents of his backpack. His glasses were sticky and had a piece of meat smeared on the lenses.
Strelok wiped the glasses clean and put them on. No, they were still smudged, he saw everything blurry. He heard some scornful snickering when he tried them on, but Strelok was used to that. He paid those idiots no mind and cleaned the glasses again. Ah yes, much better this time!
"The blowout is almost over, I don't want to spend here a minute more than necessary," a voice said surprisingly close to him.
Startled by the unexpected comment, he turned to the source of the voice to see Scar waiting by his side. The merc's face changed into surprise when he saw Strelok, who still sported his glasses. The moment stretched like an eternity.
"The glasses..." Scar said like that explained everything he was trying to express.
"Yeah, what?" Strelok growled at him. He was willing to let slide a single joke or comment about it, just this once.
The mercenary looked fixedly at him like he was mesmerized. "I had never seen you with glasses. You look good with them."
Scar's admission left him wordless. Oh. Strelok's face grew hot and he had the oddest feeling in the pit of his stomach. That had been a compliment, right? How should he answer? He had no idea of what to do now.
"Th-the blowout is over, we should go now." He walked to the door, refusing to meet Scar's eyes any longer. Strelok hoped the cold air of Zaton's plains would help him hide the persistent flush on his cheeks.
# 4
"Are you sure this is the famous Heart of the Oasis? It looks like a weird green Fireball."
The doubts of privateGalkin were understandable. Up close the legendary looked pretty unremarkable, but mistaking it for a Fireball was quite the leap. Luckily, Strelok could be considered an expert on artifacts. He had collected all kinds during his expeditions, often risking his own integrity in the process. He couldn't help it though, Strelok was a born scavenger.
"Sure it is! One second," Strelok took out his glasses to see better every detail of the pulsing rock he held in his left hand. "Do you see vines around it? If you look closely you'll see they actually pierce it from one side to the other. And the core is green because it's made of leaves, see them? Fireballs aren't that rounded, and are always blood red."
"And does it work?" The young soldier was enthralled looking at the artifact.
"It definitely heals," Scar said unhappily. It was the first time he spoke again after Strelok tested the artifact's properties that morning.
"How can you be so sure?"Galkin sure was full of questions.
"Because that reckless moron here had the bright idea to equip the Heart and jump off a cliff to see if it worked." Scar answered, full of sarcasm and some residual anger.
Just then Degtyarev came out of the military prefab and spotted them. He stopped dead in his tracks, whether it was a reaction to Strelok's latest stunt or seeing him with the glasses for the first time remained a mystery.
"It wasn't a very tall cliff!" Strelok defended himself. Really, he wasn't stupid! And he had been carrying a Soul artifact in his backpack, in case anything went wrong.
The boy's eyes went big as saucers. "Woah, I had no idea scientists were so daring! Is that a normal procedure, doctor...?"
"Doctor Strelok? Such an honour to meet you at last," Degtyarev finally chimed in, eyes shining with mirth. "You know, he glasses really sell the image."
"Wait, Strelok? As in the guy who disabled the Brain Scorcher? Did you really see the Wish Granter? " Private Galkin was even more excited now.
Strelok gave him a weak smile and looked pleadingly at Degtyarev. He was very uncomfortable when the rookies -and sometimes not only them- went all starstruck around him.
Degtyarev caught his silent plea, thank God. "You can return to your post, soldier. Now! Or you'll be cleaning floors with a toothbrush for a month!"
Galkin went away, sulking like a child who got scolded. In Strelok's opinion, someone so young shouldn't be in the Zone; but then again he hadn't been much older when he snuck in for the first time.
"Good to see you learned to work together," Degtyarev was genuinely pleased to see Strelok and Scar were getting along, or at least not trying to kill each other. "Professor Ozersky is waiting for us. No, don't take off your glasses yet, Tarasov is with him and I wanna see how long it takes him to recognise you."
# 5
Searching a clue of who he was a sad task, especially because he had so few belongings they all fit in the pockets of his coat. The backpack was empty, just like his head. Where have all his memories gone? He supposed he should be grateful to even be alive after the truck crash.
He had no name, no life he remembered, no purpose beyond apparently trying to kill someone. Who was he? The idea of killing stirred the ghost of a memory, faint and fleeting, so he supposed it was something he'd done before. He couldn't be very normal if he'd been in the Zone, that much he knew.
The line of objects in front of him was pitifully short and impersonal: a few bullets, a piece of something that it might have been bread, a strange and wicked looking tooth from God knew what animal, and a twisted mess of dark metal that once were a pair of glasses. That had been the most surprising one. Were those his? He didn't think he actually needed glasses, so far he saw everything fine. They looked like he either picked them from a dump or had repaired the glasses often, there were traces of them being welded together at various points. He tried them on but he felt stupid, one of the lenses was missing and the other was cracked. And the bent metal frame dug uncomfortably on his temple. No, those definitely weren't his, but then he couldn't understand why he'd been carrying them in the first place.
After a long stretch of time looking at the objects like he expected a sudden revelation -and getting none- he decided to sell the bullets and throw the rest. It was all trash anyway. He better stopped losing his time and started searching for that guy Strelok.
- 13
- 14
- 15
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From the Zone with love