thearena | Forget Your Running, I Will Find You [Closed]

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Forget Your Running, I Will Find You [Closed]

WHO| Howard, Draco, Eponine and Lindsay
WHAT| Howard and Draco run into each other, Eponine dies.
WHEN| Week 2
WHERE| Fantasyland
WARNINGS/NOTES: Death, mind control.

Having escaped both Grey and Aunamee, Howard takes a little while to compose himself. If he thought near-death experiences would eventually desensitize him, he hasn't been proven right yet. He's shaky and bleeding in a few places, and the unusual calmness he felt when he entered Fantasyland has entirely left him. He clutches his knife so hard that his fist is a whole shade lighter than the rest of his body.

It's starting to get dark, but he doesn't dare call Eponine's name. He climbs through a shop window and looks around, realizing rather suddenly that he's not alone in the cramped, dilapidated building. There's someone else breathing, someone nearby who's probably just heard him enter. Someone probably reaching for a knife of their own right now.

Hoping it's Eponine, Howard grabs the lighter in his pocket from the Sponsor and flicks it on, taking a step back. It reflects off a pale face and light hair that have featured in plenty of his nightmares lately.

"Oh, great. You."

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Draco didn't doubt for a second that his luck would run out eventually. It hadn't lasted between Arenas, after all - his go at the Cornucopia had seen him barely enough to last out the first week - and even after he figured out that his magic worked in that one section of the Arena, he wasn't holding his breath that things were going to work out well for him this time around.

But it was still worth a shot. He felt decent about his magic now - he was no longer forced to deal with wandless magic alone, not after he got that knife and found a twig he could carve into a facsimile of his long gone wand - and though he knew Howard wouldn't be all that afraid of having a stick pointed at him, Draco knew. That was good enough.

A cruel smirk cracked across his face when the lighter lit things up just enough to show him who he was dealing with, enough to illuminate the wand he had lifted in his defence. "Me. Nice seeing you again," Draco drawled in greeting.

Draco looks ghoulish, like someone shining a flashlight under their face at a slumber party. The wand looks like a hand-carved stake. Howard flicks the light back off, plunging them back into total darkness. He takes a few seconds to stumble backwards more, cursing silently when he backs up against the wall.

"Look, I won't hurt you if you don't hurt me. I'm armed, so I can..." He doesn't say 'with a knife', because the last time he had a knife he stabbed Draco like a baked potato ready for the oven. He'd rather not remind Draco of that, although he's sure the other guy hasn't forgotten.

He hopes Draco didn't see the blood all over Howard's white pants, doesn't hear the way he limped back.

Draco didn't move when they were suddenly plunged into darkness. He got the feeling that Howard didn't like what he saw, and that really only made him feel better about himself. Wild thoughts of revenge danced in his head, and he imagined that this was the sort of thing that the Capitol thrived on. Maybe it would help him win one of these days - but then, what would he do with his time? Who knew.

He muttered a hasty Lumos under his breath, a light emitting from the stick in a wavering white glow that filled the immediate area far better than the lighter had.

"Like hell you won't," Draco spat, his free hand moving to his trousers, pulling out a knife of his own and flicking it open with a fumble. "Like you didn't the last time around? I was unarmed. I was fucking asleep. And yet-"

He cut himself off, wickedness playing in the corners of his mouth. "Well, now we're both armed. And I do think that I've got a bit of a one-up on you this time around," he went on, folding his knife back up and tucking it away. Lifting his wand a little, the light that stemmed from it bowed and bent, casting odd shadows on the walls. "But I bet you didn't think about that, did you? You thought you'd always get the advantage, didn't you?"

Howard doesn't know how to interpret the light that suddenly comes from Draco's stick. He only knows that it can't possibly be a good thing. The shadows against the walls arch upwards against the ceiling and lean in, like co-conspirators.

Howard's hand holding the knife shakes a little.

"Yeah, so. Yeah. Let's just gloss over the fact that you stabbed me at the Cornucopia. I wasn't trying to kill you, I was only trying to play fair." In Howard's head, that's legitimate; he sees no distinction between fighting with someone over a weapon in the open field and sneaking up on them as they sleep.

"What happened last Arena should stay last Arena," he says, fumbling for an excuse.

"It's the Cornucopia, you idiot. Everyone's killing everyone else out there. And I merely poked you. You didn't die from it," he snarled, hardly finding that as legitimate as Howard did. His eyes remained locked on Howard, rather than the shadows, or the knife, or the blood on Howard's trousers. It all registered, of course, and he knew that if he glanced away for even a moment, he'd have that knife in his back.

All the more reason to get the drop on him first.

"That's the worst excuse I've ever heard. Are you trying to be pathetic in hopes that I feel bad for you? Because I don't."

A muscle in Howard's jaw tightens. His eyes narrow. He's not pathetic, and he doesn't want to hear it from this uptight upper crust douchebag.

"Oh, go fuck yourself. A poke is what you give someone when they get their flu shot. A poke is something you do on a car trip to annoy your cousins. You stabbed me. And you cut open Eponine's throat and you're going to lecture me?"

He doesn't step away from the wall, but his eyes slide to the window. He could make a run for it. If the stick only glows and doesn't shoot lasers or anything, he might be able to get out before Draco can do anything drastic.

"And I don't need people like you feeling bad for me."

He didn't know what a flu shot was, nor did he have any experience with car trips; his cousins were all pricks, a good handful of whom were dead or blood traitors. He'd stab them given half a chance, if they ever happened to show up there in the Arenas.

"They're not the same thing," Draco stated, rolling his eyes in a small, practiced gesture. It doesn't distract him from noticing Howard's glance towards the window. His heart was in his throat again, and after a moment's hesitation, he flicked his wand towards it instead, the light extinguishing and plunging them into darkness again as the window locked itself and stuck fast.

Then, though he couldn't see Howard, he aimed his stick back towards the other man, ready to cast something. Anything. He didn't know what just yet, but it would come to him when the time came.

"Oh, that's right," he drawled then, taking a slow step forward through the dark. "You've got precious Eponine for that. You know her first reaction is to beg for her life in every situation? It's pathetic," he spat, taking another step. "Have you ever heard her do that? Just sit there and cower, begging someone for her life? Pleading? Practically on her hands and knees, willing to do anything if only-" Draco broke off, affecting an imitation of Eponine's voice, "-Monsieur, please don't hurt me! Don't kill me, Monsieur!"

In the dark, the fact that Howard's breathing is fast and panicky is all the more evident. He's trapped. He's well and truly trapped and that stick of Malfoy's can apparently do more than glow.

"You're sick. You're a fucking sicko," he says. His voice quavers and floats like a leaf buffeted by wind. Tears lace his eyes as he tries not to picture his only friend here that scared, that proud, feisty girl reduced to such indignities. He knows she probably begged, there's nothing wrong with begging, but he also knows she never wants to. He knows she has more pride than he does.

And it's that that guides his hand as he brandishes the knife at Malfoy. He steps away from the wall, closing the gap between them, feeling that the edge of the wand is only centimeters from him.

"Last chance to let me go, asshole."

For not the first time in that Arena, Draco was glad he got ahold of a decent conduit. It still felt weird; his magic wasn't working the way it ought to, and it was more tiring than it should have been. Like he was working with a tool that wasn't meant for him. But it would do the trick for now.

"Says you. The one who stabbed me to death in my sleeping bag. And then I'll bet you stole everything I had, too. Did you manage to salvage the bag? Did you use it as it was, covered in my blood? Or did you let them take it away - out of sight, out of mind, isn't that what they say?" He hissed, more than a little pleased that Howard sounded so terrified. It was absolutely empowering, hearing someone actually afraid of him like this.

"I'm not planning on letting you go. I have plans for you." Draco grinned to himself in the dark, the expression too wild. "But feel free to try and escape, if that's what you like. If you can, of course." And with that, he segued into the first charm that came to mind, another of the Unforgivables: "Crucio."

Howard lunges for the window. Locked or not, maybe in the dark he can break it and scramble out.

The wand is like a bomb going off in Howard's chest. He reels backwards, spine twisting and arching as his muscles go through strange contortions he didn't know they could move into. It feels as if his flesh is trying to rip itself off his bones. He screams, not caring if anyone hears, and drops to the floor. Kaleidoscope colors explode in front of his eyes. He writhes and skin scrapes off his temple and onto the floor.

After a few seconds that feel like a year, it's over. He collapses, deflates, gasping for breath. He doesn't know what Draco just did to him. His hand gropes around the floor for the knife he dropped.

If the Imperius Curse working had been empowering, then this Cruciatus made him feel like he was on top of the world. He understood right that moment while the Dark Lord liked it so much - it made him feel invincible. Like no one could touch him. Draco was oblivious to everything in that moment: their surroundings, the cameras, the Capitol. Everything. It was just him, and Howard writhing on the floor, and his little stick that actually worked, and there was nothing that could pull him down from that high.

He didn't even bother casting it again; Draco merely kicked the knife away from Howard's hand, then stepped down on his wrist, not quite hard enough to cause any major injuries. "Oh no, you don't. What do you think you're playing at? We've been over this - I have the advantage right now, not you."

Which was when a small weight fell on top of Howard.
Eponine.

Maybe at first, her embrace looked like a desperate attempt to stop Draco hurting Howard further. Maybe it looked like the cuddle from a friend he hadn't seen for two weeks in an arena where people had to fight to the death. Maybe at first he didn't notice Eponine trying to dig her sharpened nails into his neck.

Eponine, for her part, was terrified. She could hear her own voice in her head - but she could hear Draco's too, whispering to her to come, to jump, to embrace, to kill. And her body acted against her will. No matter how much she tried to stop her fingers, no matter how much she tried to open her mouth and scream... nothing. There was NOTHING she could do. Except obey Draco and kill the only friend she had ever had.

Eponine HATED Draco at this point. Well, she loathed him all of the time - he was too much like Montparnasse. The type to pull your skirts aside against the alley wall and take his own, before punching you square in the face for being a whore. Though Draco, of course, would give his an aristocratic flavour.

She hated herself as she felt her face lowering to Howard's, to plant a kiss on his lips before biting down hard with her sharpened teeth. She hated Draco for doing this to her. And she hated Howard for being her friend.

Eponine's eyes were blank as Draco's hiss resounded in her head and made her try to tighten her claws in Howard's neck and bite down over and over on his face.

Howard tries to weakly pull his wrist from under Draco's boot, moaning as the last of the pain leaves his body, to be replaced with exhaustion. And then Eponine is on top of him.

He doesn't know where she came from. He doesn't know if she was in the dark with them all along, quietly listening as Draco mocked her. He doesn't know, if she was here, why she didn't make her move sooner, why she didn't speak up. But he knows it's her from the hoarseness of her breathing, from the smell of her that he remembers from hugging each other after the last Arena.

"Eponine, what are you..." She's hugging him, and then she's leaning in for a kiss, and while he's wondered what that might be like, if he'd like that, this is wrong. Something's wrong. He doesn't move as her lips press to his, paralyzed with confusion, until she bites down.

He screams again and tries to squirm out from under her. Her teeth are fangs, ripping a gash clean through his already swollen mouth. His lower lip cleaves in half, punctured, torn, like a hoof. He apologizes to her in his mind as he brings a knee up into her hips to try and force her off him.

Did she betray him? Why? Why would she stand there while Draco mocked them both and then attack him? Howard gives a confused sob and reaches for the knife again, dimly aware of Draco watching them both on the floor.

He hadn't expected Eponine to find Howard at the same time he did, but it was brilliant luck on his part. He hadn't in a million years expected to be able to see the girl try and take him down. A bark of a laugh escaped from him, and Draco stumbled back a step or two, releasing Howard's wrist; there's nothing more he thinks he can do that could be helpful to the matter. He'd much rather just stand back and watch Eponine tear into him. Her friend.

It was hilarious, really. It served them both right. Her for spitting at him twice, for thinking something of him when she had no idea who he was; and him for thinking he was better than Draco. He wasn't, and he never had a chance of that.

He let Howard go for the knife that time, hoping that maybe they'd tear each other apart. Wouldn't that be something? Then Draco wouldn't have to deal with either of them, and he could go back to meandering about this horrid place by himself. With Katurian, more likely. With Atticus, maybe. He hadn't been so bad.

"How's that for you, Howard? Looks like your precious Eponine decided to show up for you after all," Draco sneered, stepping back against the wall, back into the deeper shadows.

There really was no god.

Inside, Eponine was crying, sobbing - really sobbing, as she did over Marius back in Paris. She was trying so hard to curl her hands into fists - but every time she thought it, Draco's voice hissed in her mind, told her to claw deeper, harder, to find the point that'd make blood spurt. Already, buts of skin were wedged in her nails, and they were painted with blood from the scratches at Howard's neck. His kick to her hips did nothing either - Draco's voice ordered her to balance, to keep on top and so she did, sprawling over him, still biting down on his face.

Her face showed no pity - no emotion as she bit down again and again on his face, taking a hand to trace over his heart - to start to claw through the clothes at his heart.

"Aaaugh!" He kicks again against her, this time harder, grabbing her wrist and trying to break her hold on his neck. Hot blood is dribbling down his neck, down his face, mingling with her saliva and his tears. He shrieks and squirms and feels her claws digging into his skinny chest. "Stop, stop! Eponine, it's me, I'm your friend, Eponine...!"

This has to be a nightmare. He's going to wake up soon, tangled in his bedsheets, covered in sweat and not blood, and he'll go downstairs to where Eponine's taken over his District 1 room, and she'll have her normal fingernails that the stylists have painted pink-

He twists around and gets out from under her. They're side by side. Her arms are still pulling at him, her mouth still biting. There's a flap like a wet piece of paper against his jaw; she has a strip of skin from his cheek stuck in her teeth, he realizes, even though he can't see it in the dark. His stomach turns. He kicks and shoves again, dragging her with him as he gets up and staggers to the window, slamming his elbow against it to smash the glass in.

Draco could hear his own heart in his throat, his own breathing loud in his ears as he stepped back again, lifting his wand a little bit, muttering a soft Lumos under his breath. The light that emitted wavered for a moment, then held fast, a gentle glow that let him just see enough to suggest that now was probably the time to get out of there. He cracked another maniacal smirk to himself, wondering what sort of reaction the Capitol was having to all of this. Maybe he'd get a Sponsor out of the deal.

(Maybe Effie and Cinna would be horrified. Maybe Momoko would be sick at what he'd done.)

"That's right, mademoiselle. Tear him to pieces," Draco murmured, glancing back over his shoulder as he looked around for the door. Once Eponine's job was done, he didn't care what she did. She could run around sobbing over the mess; she could mourn until the day she too was taken out. But he was going to get out of there.

Eponine groaned as she was flung to the floor and then dragged over to the window by Howard, though not a sound actually escaped her lips. Inside, she panicked that Howard was going to hurt her, and it was almost a relief when she heard Draco's voice hissing in her mind for her to cry. Tears began to slip down from her blank eyes.

"Monsieur, please do not hurt me. Don't kill me, Monsieur." She parroted Draco's impression of her, her voice rising slightly higher than normal, gaining a slight twang of well-formed words instead of missing the odd letter from a word as she usually did.

But still, even amidst the shattering glass, she reached for Howard, raking her nails as hard as she could down him, tearing his clothes as she did so. His blood covered her face, especially round her mouth and her yellow eyes bulged as her swipes became more and more frantic.

Howard yells again as Eponine rends the shirt from his back, as broken glass digs into his arm when he breaks open the window. He gets a hand up on the sill, feeling glass stab through his palm, but he can't pull himself up and out with Eponine hanging onto him.

"Get off, get off, please!" Somewhere he realizes how silly it is to politely ask for anything in a situation like this. Eponine is erratic, rabid, tearing at him with claws and teeth and gazing at him with yellow eyes that glow in start contrast to the red on her face, the flush and the blood. He doesn't want to hurt her. He doesn't know if he can. He can only keep trying to shove her away, no longer thinking of saving her from Draco, only of getting away.

He slips back down from the window, back against the wall, leaving himself to Eponine's mercy.

"Someone help me!" he cries.

Drawn out by the sounds of struggling and desperate cries, Lindsey ventured closer to the source of noise with the intention of just watching. Since he wasn't sure what was going on, he had approached carefully, keeping to hiding in shadows or covered areas until he found himself observing a three people, one of whom was trying to leave the scene.

Draco, he recognized the young blond man to be, but couldn't seem to recognize the other two locked in battle. Whatever was happening though, it would seem like that it was left to the girl and the black guy, and the girl had the advantage.

She was also intently distracted by the guy she was trying to kill.

Seeing all this as an open opportunity, Lindsey carefully moved closer, still keeping to the backdrop until he was nearly within striking distance. Suddenly without warning, he leaped out of his hiding place swinging a large metal bar at the back of her head. It was a practiced move where he used to decapitate demons with a broadsword, so he had every confident it was enough to brain her if he hit.

Eponine's tears stopped as Draco's voice in her head focused her on Howard again, and she reached for his neck. She was unable to look around, or even move as Lindsey came closer.

Lindsey's bar hit Eponine's head with an awful crunch, and Eponine immediately blacked out, slumping forward on top of Howard. Her body was completely limp - and she was once more dying, this time of a serious head injury.

Howard shrieks as Eponine's head flops in his lap, as a spray of blood from her scalp covers his face and neck. She lands with her face to the side, showing him her eyes aren't closed, that the blood vessels in the one facing upwards have popped and left her eyes a demonic red. Her mouth is slightly open, as if to say, 'oh...'.

It takes a second for him to tear his eyes away from her to look at what actually hit her. It's a man he doesn't know, someone with a metal rod. "Please don't kill me! Please!"

Howard grabs Eponine's wrist, bolts up, drags her about five inches and then drops her. She was trying to kill him, he thinks. She's not his friend. She's already dead. What's he going to do with a dead body? But he's so loath to leave her. He falls back, a little out of Lindsey's hitting range.

There's something to be said for the sudden inclusion of someone else. Of course, it didn't take out Howard, but it looked as though he was severely injured. And Eponine was dead or dying, and Draco still felt a good amount of self-satisfaction that he had helped bring both of them down to this, and still get away relatively unscathed. Entirely unscathed, perhaps.

He hesitated another moment, then smirked to himself and ducked back out of the building, leaving the three - two - of them to their devices. Maybe he'd hear a bit more cannon fire that night.

Out of sight, Lindsey assumed the other boy had gone off, leaving him with the dark guy and the dying —dead— girl. It was cute how the guy tried to drag the girl's corpse with him, although not understanding the relationship between them, Lindsey could only smirk at the foolishness.

"Sorry for taking your revenge from you," he said as he now pointed the tip of his large metal bar at the remaining survivor. No more element of surprise, but one on one, he could take him.

"But hey, think on the bright side, I'll send you out too. Sorry, buddy, it's the rule of the game."

"Revenge?" Howard gets his feet under him and tries to ignore the way those words send a chill up his spine. Maybe it's just the way all that blood is cooling on him. He glances back down at Eponine, at the strands of black hair matting into the head wound. She's dead, she's definitely dead. Her skin looks the color of dried bone is the dim light. A lock of hair near her mouth is perfectly still, creepily so, like a photograph, whereas if she were alive it would be rustling back and forth with her breathing.

"Make it...make it fast..."

But Howard doesn't intend to stick around and see if Lindsey follows his request. He jolts upwards, straightening his legs despite the screaming in his thigh, and slams his hand down on the windowsill. An impaling shard of glass erupts all the way from his palm through between his second and third knuckle. He swings his legs over the sill and starts to stumble and run out of the building, away from Lindsey, hoping he's not being followed.

Lindsey would've gladly made it fast, how does getting brained in one hit sound? Except the guy would rather stab himself in the hand than to stand still, and how could Lindsey blame him?

If he was feeling adventurous, Lindsey would follow the obvious blood trail left behind, but he wasn't here to hunt. He had walked in and killed the girl because it was an opportunity kill, but now that the guy had ran off, it would be too troublesome to chase after him.

Shaking his head, Lindsey checked to see if there was anything useful on the dead girl before heading off to the other direction. He didn't even know their names, oops.

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Forget Your Running, I Will Find You [Closed]

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do we want to get Lindsey in here soon?

Re: do we want to get Lindsey in here soon?

Re: do we want to get Lindsey in here soon?

And here Lindsey comes

Re: And here Lindsey comes

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and now it's just the two of them

And then there's one