#zhangir

(not pictured in the first image)

The first time Chiyonshoh meets Spy and Pauling he's actually Very Fucking Scared of both of them. Because neither of them are freaking out about having just committed a murder.

Chiyonshoh is genuinely a small time criminal. he's a slippin jimmy type guy except less successful. He's used to having options that consist of having to bribe his way out of a situation, taking an L in the form of a grave injury, or running away. He's used to handling the consequences of his own actions. No one else's.

And now these fucking strangers killed a man. killed a man whose blood stained fingerprints are now LITERALLY all over Chiyonshoh's permanent records. He nods along when they're like "hey we 'saved you' from xyz consequences" but mentally he's like. Oh Шайтон, we're really in it now.

He became a wanted criminal not for any of the hundreds of crimes he committed, but for one he didn't.

It's not that he's unfamiliar with violent crime, it's that for all his criminal behavior in terms of theft et cetera, he's usually the recipient of violence if things go awry. If there were truth to bones healing stronger than they started, he’d be made of stone by now, because things very often went awry.

Pauling and Spy are not the type of people whose offers he can negotiate (ie, beg, grovel, promise) down to a shattered kneecap and leaving him alive to tell the tale, like he could with that smuggling gang in Tambov after getting caught robbing them blind. In Tambov, by luck, sheer luck, the only one with a gun was too antsy to aim correctly, instead just barely missing his actual joint. Chiyonshoh is very good at doing that broken-bone scream though, and after they left him in the mud he managed to walk away with a harsh scar from where the bullet grazed him, rather than a permanent limp. Luck, Chiyonshoh's stupid, demented, undeserved luck could deal with gangsters fine... sort of, given that his idea of a good outcome left him permanently scarred. Call him an optimist, or a masochist, but he wasn't a maniac like these murderers.

Chiyonshoh wasn't even sure if either Pauling or Spy would have qualms about beating him to death with the dead official's telephone if he raised an objection at all. so he went along with them, quietly, for once. and he nodded when they said he was "lucky to be found by Mann Co." and for a long time while traveling, he kept his mouth firmly shut.

Mann Co wants him because he routinely survives when the odds say he absolutely had no chance. He doesn't... succeed in his original goals very much, but he doesn't die trying either. The truth is, he just has really, really incredible instincts for getting out of a situation. Most of the time. He's terrible about avoiding messes, but excellent at surviving them. He blunders his way in, and solves his way out.

In short: a perfect spy, at least for certain, very specific, purposes.

On the other hand, mann co actually did help Zhangir, because it was convenient for the company to do.

chiyonshoh snuck back to dushanbe and zhangir is absolutely incandescent with rage about it because this is abandonment and betrayal of everything he values. chiyonshoh took jomi (scout) with him, and his dad (spy) went to dushanbe to get him back, not realizing it was more of a boys trip than a kidnapping. chiyonshoh tries to convince spy to go home by bluffing him with vague Consequences from his vague Connections, but instead spy shoots him out of 100% believing he has evil commie connections that will steal his soul or something. because he's more racist than chiyonshoh was expecting

originally chiyonshoh died and respawns at base, leaving spy to find his son by disguising as chiyonshoh (who he doesn't even know was able to respawn). spy does not realize he son had been fine until scout breaks his nose, and his disguise. his disguise of his presumed dead friend's skin.

that's now retconned, instead spy shoots chiyonshoh, but the sound attracts attention, and he ends up apprehended because he literally fired a gun in the middle of a city, the dumbass. (he is very much not firing on all cylinders, and had been searching for days to find this freak and his son, so.)

chiyonshoh has still been shot, but ends up in a hospital. leaving jomi (scout) "home alone: lost in dushanbe" and freaking the fuck out. scout gets himself home after like a week of being bored, but spy respawns at base after well over a month and is absolutely fucked up about whatever happened to him in that time. he wants to talk to zhangir about it, but zhangir is still running hot from the betrayal, so instead he says about two words a week to heavy about it and gets maybe two words back at the same rate.