thearena | (no subject)

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Who| R, Howard Bassem, Perry Kelvin, Julie Grigio
What| R reunites with his not-girlfriend’s not-so-dead ex he murdered way back when. It’s messy. Also him wandering around for Week 2, post-jaw
Where| Wandering away from the temple – may briefly end up close to the Compound edges but he won’t be going in.
When| End of week 1/very beginning of Week 2 for his jaw maiming. Mostly taking place in Week 2 for anything after that.
Warnings/Notes| Zombie-stuff, facial gore references.

Perry Kelvin

It’s hard to spook a zombie, but Eva Salazar’s done it. And here he’d been thinking she was a nice, middle-aged lady with a soft spot for zombies – before she began showing him exactly why she won her Game decades ago. She’s a little too good at brutal killing for his tastes. R takes off next chance he gets.

It’s the end of the week when R blunders into the very last person he expected to see in the Arena. It's a dead boy convention here.

He rounds the tree trunk and stops, stares, gets a gape in while he's at it, and he's so surprised he forgets all about groaning and rocking. His posture goes from slouching to rigor-mortis stiff. Perry Kelvin. Julie's ex. There probably wasn't anything left of him after they got through his body aside from some scraps, R imagining for a second he could feel chunks of Perry's brain hanging heavy in his pocket, fresh, those memories buzzing around waiting for someone to take a bite. The guilt staining him, cell by cell. His blood cooling on his chin.

Now Perry's there in the flesh, scavenging through a bag of supplies with this efficiency he's probably mirroring from General Grigio.

What does he do? R refuses to kill him again for old time's sake. Maybe he should say something. Apologize, if Perry remembers. Chances are he'll get a knife to the face or something but the longer he stands there swaying, the more R thinks he wants to do something stupid. If he can bring a Living girl home, he can start a conversation with someone he murdered mid-Arena. Try to set things right. Before R realizes it, he's lurching from the tree he'd been hiding behind. His best shoulder dips forward, R raising his hands in what - he hopes - is a shaky "I surrender" gesture.

"Hgggh...Perry?"

Howard Bassem

So Howard knows about Aunamee. Awkward.

R has no idea yet how he plans to catch up to him. Supposedly the human would find him because anything like a sign or a bonfire or anything obvious and interesting enough to a zombie would be even more in-your-face to the Living. After the one-sided talk with Wyatt, R’s not even sure how it’ll go.

What does he say? Would he even have the words if he had a mouth?

He’s thinking that’s a solid “no”.

He stumbles around the second week, feeling the hunger getting stronger as if the missing jaw was only an inconvenience. The thought of eating again fills him with vague nausea. So does the idea of letting himself starve. Go rest against a tree and just…stop. Wait it out. Let the jungle and those weird vines overtake him.

R keeps moving instead, shuffling forward until one day he blunders into one of Howard’s carefully placed traps from the wrong angle. The sleeping bag that’s spent the last two weeks getting dragged across the island gets stuck as R tries to keep walking, can’t, and turns to stare almost helplessly at the trap. Really? He’s supposed to be carrying this stuff for his friends and now look at it! Tugging on it again doesn’t seem to do anything. Jesus, this just isn’t his week, is it?

Julie Grigio

He can't eat very well with half his face torn off. R suspects he'll probably starve to real-death before someone figures out how to kill him. When you can’t even groan to pass the time, you spend the majority of it lost in your head, thinking. Sometimes drifting off. Mostly regretting. A lot of it seems to stem from finding out a certain dead boy isn’t as dead as he’s supposed to be.

Does Julie know about Perry? If she’s still alive, the right thing to do would be to groan about it to her, but...well. Yeah.

It's messy, like, kill-site messy. Maybe worse. The guilt comes alive in his guts again even though she knows what he did to her ex. R guesses maybe he’s scared, too. As scared as a zombie can get. He thinks back to life before Julie and realizes it’s gray and boring and – and lifeless, even for a walking corpse. Going back to it fills him with a new ache, a new horror in the back of his mind that curls unpleasantly the more he thinks about it. It’s easier to focus on the present: the wet leaves slapping in his face, the feel of rain trickling down what’s left of his face and leaving tracks in the mud caked on. The phantom jaw clenching. Teeth he doesn’t have grinding.

He keeps moving. It takes a few hours of staring to realize he’s been seeing something in the mud, these deep tracks ground in that are fresh enough they haven’t been washed away yet. Following them leads him to the edge of the trees, a circle of houses complete with spotless picket fences that look like they have a new coat of paint. R stops in surprise.

The tracks weirdly enough don’t go right at the houses – they go around, almost cautiously, as if the owner didn’t jump at the first sign of civilization. R stands there framed by the trees, his swaying posture giving him away as he considers what to do next. Bank on those tracks being anyone he knows or head toward the houses?

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Let it be known that Perry is nothing if not resourceful. He had turned the tent into a bag (at this point there was no way someone could rip through this thing, it was lined up with itself multiple times), and he could carry it, so long as it's on his good arm. The left shoulder wasn't terrible, though. He'd already been able to pop it back in (not an easy task, but there was no way he'd be able to do anything with it still like that), and a fairly large cut that had stopped bleeding early on. He'd used the bear claw to rip some of the tent, and now used it as a bandage.

But the biggest problem was the lack of weapons. He'd tried for a few, but all he got away with was the bear trap.

So, obviously, he needed to turn it into a weapon that could be used, not just as a trap, but something to hit a person with. The bendable rods for the tent were fastened to the bear claw with the ropes, also from the tent. He'd tested it out a few times now, and while you had to carefully pry it back open once it hit something, it worked out well.

He'd headed in a direction, and tried not to regret the decision. There was some kind of temple, and he'd gone in and searched it, but didn't touch anything yet. He'd spend a night or two in it, and maybe move on. He hadn't touched the water yet, either, but there was only so much beer he could take. For now, he'd taken the time to go through his dwindling supplies. Half of a box of powdered eggs, and only a few potatoes left.

No matter how busy he might be, though, he was always alert. So the shuffling is hear, as is the groan, and he's on his feet, stopping when he hears his name come from the corpse. His name was being groaned to him by a corpse.

How the hell did it know his name? "How do you know my--" Perry knows that face. He knows that face. He freezes up, mouth falling open slightly before he snapped it shut. He didn't stop holding his weapon in an attack position though, even as he says angrily:

"How do you know my name?"

R's so busy staring at Perry, seeing a face he knows looks more Dead than his, that he doesn't even register the jury-rigged bear-trap in his hands.

He can see the change as it morphs in Perry - he goes stiff, surprised because who knew a corpse could talk and then he looks pissed, his eyebrows knitting together. Maybe he suspects that not only zombies are cannibals, but they're also thieves of the worst kind. He...oh. Oh shit. It's not just that. Perry actually recognizes him. R had wondered if he would, in that dim fantasy he'd had in his head if they could ever re-do what happened that day in the lab: what if Julie had died, what if he could've gasped something out first thing through that door instead of snarling. What if Perry hadn't decided to sign up for that salvage mission.

This isn't one of the scenarios. R swallows nervously, an old reflex that still stayed with him somehow even though his mouth is dry and his throat ruined by whatever he's shoved down there throughout the years. He can feel Perry's eyes, so dark they look black instead of brown, fixed on him. The accuser and accused. "Murder victim" is probably more accurate.

Perry Kelvin deserves the truth.

"Ate," R feels the word withering on his tongue. He reaches up and taps his forehead, the humidity plastering his hair to his skull as he slurs. "Hhhg...here."

Should he come closer? R debates it, feeling the hunger tugging him toward Perry as if once wasn't enough. He can feel the urge to drool trying to fight its way past whatever shreds of self-control he's learned in the Capitol. R can't look away from Perry's face; too old, too young, and he's seen it before in the scuffed mirrors frowning back.

He's just so surprised by this whole thing. Really, Perry Kelvin never thought this day would come. He never thought any days would come, frankly, and while showing up in a crazy place like this, being forced to kill other people for entertainment was something he never thought would come, meeting his killer?

And he was his killer. But he was his killer because he wanted him to be. It wouldn't do any good to say that it was all an accident, or that he should be upset because he died, and this was the corpse to do it. Perry hadn't picked out exactly where he was going to die, or who was going to do it. He knew what he wanted, and that lab?

It was just the place that was where the mission was, on the day that he wanted. "That makes no sense, you know that, right?" As soon as he said it, he knew how dumb it was. How could he really expect a corpse to make sense?

"Come any closer and I'll take your head off." Perry might be confused on this whole thing, but every kid in the stadium knew what a corpse looked like when he was hungry. And he wouldn't be leaving the dying thing to this one again.

"When did you show up here?"

R pauses where he's slouched, the humidity hanging heavy between them. Yeah, he knew this didn't make any sense. A corpse shouldn't have regret, shouldn't be moaning and groaning a conversation with one of the hundreds he'd killed. Things used to be simple: eat, groan, stare, and on and on and on. Not this.

"Think...months," R says.

Each word, each syllable is more of a struggle than usual. He can feel Perry's black eyes on him, unreadable. Flat. With a stare like that burning into him, R has to struggle even more than usual to force words between his stiff lips. When he looks at Perry, he feels all the eloquency he usually has in his head vanish and in its place is a void.

R can practically feel the other boy studying him, working out the best plan of attack to take him out with the lowest risk of being bitten. If he was more of a man, he'd let Perry take his head off anyway. Shuffle those few feet closer and let him do it.

It's almost like Perry's whispering all those secret thoughts he'd had long before that lab.

R opens his mouth. Maybe if he changes tactics, mentions the girl they both love. "...J...Julie...?"

For a second, Perry wants to shake him. Not care about being bit, not care about getting infected. Not care about any of that. He just wants to take him by the shoulders and shake him. He knew that corpses could talk now, he knew. And there's a part of him that just feels terrified about it. Because if they could talk all along, what have we been killing?

If they can talk, why haven't we tried, and would this. Would all of this? Would a man, dying in a construction accident, be a waste of life because we were too blind and stupid to do anything?

But this corpse, he'd been here for months. Months. Humorously, Perry has to think, that now he's stepping onto corpse turf now. And isn't that funny, all things con--

"What did you say?" Perry stood completely still, his body almost shaking from his nerves being wound so tight. "Julie. How do you know Julie?" It's a terrible realization, to know exactly what happens next.

"Did you eat her, you fucking corpse! Did you hurt my girl!? Did you eat her like you did with me!?"

Edited 2013-12-10 07:51 (UTC)

Julie's name should've been a common link between them. He'd intended it as a point of reference, an olive branch, a sign of some weird love that should've died with the apocalypse but didn't. In retrospect R would realize this was a really, really dumb move on his part. Of course her (Living) ex would jump to the logical conclusion when faced with a zombie. Who wouldn't? He's not supposed to talk or have room in his dead heart for regrets. He's supposed to only groan and bite.

R gapes at Perry, stunned. All his apologies and explanations fly out the window and in its place is that blank fog that he's spent most of his new un-life hating. Eat her? He - he couldn't, he...

But then he remembers that cave; turning Howard, Howard this little pathetic excuse for a zombie eating Julie alive while he had to listen. Every squish and crunch of bone. The deafening silence from Julie herself.

This is the part where he should defend himself. Maybe groan he's kept her (mostly) safe and if he could take back murdering Perry, he would. The only thing he gives him is a guilty silence that hangs pregnant in the humidity.

He'd eaten her. This corpse had eaten Julie, the only person who had left in his life. The only one worth living for. Except then he'd killed himself, but it didn't matter. She was never supposed to die as well. That's not how that was supposed to happen.

The guilt he feels is immeasurable. If he hadn't been so set on his death, she would be alive. If he hadn't been so selfish, she would be alive. If he hadn't been the worst excuse of a human being, she would be alive.

It's not just the corpse's fault that she's dead. It was Perry's, too.

Back at the stadium, you learned how to use a gun. How to shoot for the head. And, if you did not have a gun, how to disable a dead person so they couldn't come after you. Forget about just using the claw weapon he had (he'd use it in a moment), he screamed, rushing at R; before he reached him, he dropped low, tackling him, and knocking him down. It was hard to get back up for them, right?

He wanted to rip him to shreds, like he did to his girl.

Perry's rage surprises him.

R knows it should. It does, because his freshest memories are his apathy, the sinking, looking at the trees and the sky and shrugging as he stares for the hundred time at the How to Run a Salvage pamphlet. For the second he has before the human's on him, he sees that Dead look in Perry's eyes flicker and vanish.

The tackle catches him right in the solar plexus. R might have the height advantage, but Perry's got more muscle and a superior sense of balance.

He hits the ground with Perry on top, the urge to grab onto his shirt and jerk him close enough to bite rising up in his jaws. Mud squelches under his back. He bears his teeth without realizing he's doing it, his face frozen in that rigor-mortis death mask that Perry's seen over and over right before an attack. He wants to grimace, groan at him that she's fine! and I'd never eat her! The words get tangled up in the urges as the trees overhead spin. His hands paw at the other Tribute's shirt, his arms, flopping out in an instinct to grab and hold on because it feels natural when everything else is a blur.

(Probably not helping things here).

Two thoughts were going through his mind, the first being why he was doing this. This wasn't just attacking someone, it was attacking a predator who was out for your flesh. It didn't matter if he broke any bones, because it wouldn't stop him from coming at him. If you hit a dead guy in the face, it's not going to hurt him the way that Perry wanted it to.

The second also began with why he was doing this, but the difference wasn't just how he could get it to hurt, but why he was doing it. Guilt about Julie? Anger at what this corpse did to her? Guilt about letting him kill him? Anger that he didn't get the job done like he was expected to?

He was not getting turned into a zombie. This guy was strong, and he wanted to eat him, and Perry needed to find a way to incapacitate him. It's when Perry smashes his elbow into R's chest that he sees the bear trap weapon he'd created. Now he has an idea, and with a swiftness that surprises even him, he rolls away in the direction of it.

This is a Perry he's never seen before. Instead of someone who's only going through the motions and wondering over and over what's the point, this Perry Kelvin is a whirlwind. R can practically inhale the rage, the confusion, the fear wafting off him in waves. It drives into that lizard part of his brain that's controlled by the new hunger. Bite. Tear away. You can experience even more of Perry's life, it says, two for the price of one. Once in an un-lifetime chance! Going...going...

He'll be ashamed to admit it later, but his grimace starts to transform to a snarl.

He should bite Perry. Take a chunk out of his leg this time.

R's still trying to fight to do the right thing for a change. It's the reason his hands don't sink their nails into Perry's exposed skin as he nails him with the elbow, why he falls back with a wheeze of air from his dead lungs instead of lunging forward.

For a change, Perry gets that lucky break life's denied him.

He has the trap in his hands before he even realizes it, and he straddles R, pressing his elbow against his sternum. Corpses don't need to breathe. They're dead. They're all dead. They killed everyone he ever loved, and if they didn't do the actual deed, then they were the reason behind it.

The claw was already open, and he just went for it without preamble. Digging the top metal part into the corpse's mouth, he pushed it in.

"I messed up." Perry whispered, digging it in deeper. "You got me. No hard feelings there. You got me, and I wanted you to get me. But you ate my baby girl, and I'll never forgive you for that. But the least I can do is make you suffer for it."

He sat back a little, to give the trap the space it needed to snap down, the loudest crunch he'd ever heard before stunning him for a moment.

The weird thing is R still outclasses Perry in both weight and height: you think he'd have no problems wrestling him off. But something, maybe guilt plus a healthy dose of shame, weighs his arms down and makes them feel like they're attached to someone else.

There's a bear-trap attached to his face. It happens in a blink; one second it's there, the next he can feel the steel teeth cutting into his skin and punching down to the bone. He should be screaming in pain. Writhing away. Not...lying there almost as if he wants to let Perry do what he wants. Make it right somehow.

Their eyes meet. The bear-trap does its magic.

R hears more than feels it tear away half his face. It's a beast of a bear trap and his bones are brittle, no thanks to his state of decay - he can hear them crunch into fragments, what he calls his blood oozing out as his lower jaw is severed. It plops onto his chest.

Maybe it's realizing he can't talk or that he's just that much of a coward, that he's too wussy to deal with this right now. Either way, he's had enough. R surges to his feet with a strangled grunt, more of that black oil dripping from his face and reeking. The bear trap clatters to the jungle floor as he shoots Perry a look, sees that flat black-eyed stare of his, and staggers off, wet leaves slapping against his face as he dives into the tree-line.

Perry falls to the side, the bear trap next to him as he watches the corpse leave. He's missing the lower half of his jaw, and as he staggers away, Perry looks down at his shirt. It's covered in that black ooze.

His shirt is covered in zombie blood, and he's taken off the jaw of the corpse, the man, the corpse, that killed him and his girlfriend. And Perry doesn't feel that much better about it. He thought there'd be a satisfaction about how he got some revenge.

He feels sick. It's only because of the lack of food that he doesn't toss anything up, before he pulls his knees up to his chest and buries his head.

Perry cries silently, hiding away from the cameras.

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OKAY THIS IS HAPPENING

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Do your worst to R's face :)

I will never hear that said to me in regards to anything again YOU'VE GOT IT.

fufufufu >:3

>3 Will be in the next tag that it happens!

jawsome

That is TERRIBLE

:D Figure we can leave it around here.

Aaaaaaand finish!