Hungry for Life a Little Less Cruel [Open]

[greatestdetectiveaward]

Who| Javert and anyone
What| Javert is a zombie. He's not very good at it. Yet.
Where| Fantasyland
When| End of week 2
Warnings/Notes| Zombification



"Ngggggh."

Along with most of his memories, a good chunk of his mental processes and oh, yes, his pulse, it seems that Javert's lost his ability to do anything more coordinated than toddle around, using the sides of buildings to keep from tipping over on his prowl. He keeps a sort of pattern, much like a nightwatchman patrolling, so while his wandering is slow and tottery, it isn't quite aimless.

Unfortunately, Javert still finds that getting anywhere in this state takes him about four times as long as usual. He gets quite a lot of time to contemplate this, because there isn't much else to do while he shuffles around Fantasyland, occasionally grabbing in vain at one of the cats or rats and otherwise just trying to sniff out something to sate his incessant pangs of hunger. So far he hasn't found anyone, although the scent of the Living still wafts about this area. He'll run into them soon enough.

There's something profoundly displeasing about the idea of eating other people. Something deep and instinctive inside him. It burns like acid splashed across his brain. He's supposed to protect people. Good people. From wrongdoers. Wrongdoers who...

And then he loses his train of thought and starts to fantasize about quelling the pains in his sodden, dead stomach again.

Comments

[shambler]

R has this fantasy infecting him. He's had it for a few years, tried joking about it to M whenever they can both find the words. His fantasy is this: somewhere, somewhen, there's a zombie poet. Maybe he used to be a novelist who woke up dead on some autopsy table. Kept writing. The first - make that only - zombie who can write. This ghost corpse writer sits there at some table, grinding a pencil into the stub, writing about the most important thing every zombie knows. The writer beats it to death. There's only one topic he can write about, in the end.

The new hunger.

R has no idea if this corpse writer's really out there. All he knows is the hunger can take you places, that a dead guy can feel it in the guts, in his marrow, even in the roof of his dry mouth. It's everywhere. Withering. Pulling and trying to lead him to food, to others like him because being alone sucks. R wanders in that haze, his head down. His broken ankle is on its last legs, literally; it's probably gonna snap off soon. He's aware in the back of his mind that he's tired of all of this. The same cycle, over and over.

What he needs is someone to talk to. Talking helps. R nears the carousel when he hears someone out there, registering a groan that he knows instinctively is someone like him. His head swings up. R peers out his good eye, trying to will it to focus. There’s another Tribute stumbling around a few yards away, dark skin ashen today, arms flopping at his sides. I know him, R suddenly realizes. One of the few bites he had here. (He’d tasted decent. R had wanted more and more). Now he’s another Dead like him. From here he can see the oozing mess of his arm, dried puss caked on and starting to flake off like a scab.

R starts limping faster. He opens his mouth to speak. “Hiiggh. St…stop. Wait.”

It’s more of a dry croak. The newbie here probably won’t have hard feelings. R wonders how much he remembers. The vacant look on his face says the same story as everyone else – not much.

[greatestdetectiveaward]

Javert isn't used to working on base, animal impulse. He's used to intuition, gut feelings when making his next move that he then justifies with the facts to confirm his suspicions. His officer's instinct is just some subconscious, preconscious analysis that turns into an impression before it becomes an argument.

But it's impulse now that makes him stop, then slowly turn at the smell of another Dead. There is a pull to herd, like a supplement to the urge to feed the slave-driving hunger. It isn't as strong, but it's like adding a shade, a colored lens over a black and white image. Shading onto ink.

Javert isn't particularly sure he likes it. Some deep part of him prefers solitude, prefers having people to support him only when it makes some sort of tactical sense, but he can't remember if he was always like that. He can't remember a lot. So he gives in to the instinct.

"Wait...ing." He flops one arm up in a greeting that would look half-hearted on a living person, but clearly takes effort here. He totters a few steps over to R. And then he tries to introduce himself. "Airrrrr."

That's as much as he's got.

[shambler]

R almost staggers into the rusted bench next to him when Newbie actually talks.

He stares. Gapes, and not because his jaw wants to sag open like it sometimes does. R gapes because he means it.

He's never met a zombie who could talk right off the bat. Even he couldn't, and he's the airport's Chatty Cathy who doesn't know when to shut up. R raises his own arm without thinking about it, a limp-wristed wave as if he's not sure what to do with a zombie coming at him with syllables and wait, is that an introduction? R's shocked all over again. His mouth works wordlessly as he struggles to remember how to talk himself.

"R," he replies. The new guy misjudges his distance and bumps into him hard, R thrown back a step. Not even offended, R swings to the most important thing on the table. "...Hungry?"

He did kill the guy after all. It's the closest thing to a peace-offering he can give. Can Air remember what happened? So far he's not seeing a lightning bolt of recognition here, so they might be starting fresh. R hunches his shoulders pointedly at Air, his head lolling to the side as he peers at the other zombie.

[greatestdetectiveaward]

R. R and Air are going to be hard to keep apart, but the language of zombie grunting seems to have a much wider differentiation between all the myriad ways to say an 'r' noise, as well as a 'nggh' and a 'ggh' sound. Call it specialization.

"Sorrrrryy," Javert groans as he bumps into R. It seems to take him five minutes to get that out, and he was honestly planning on the apology from the instant he realized he wasn't going to be coordinated enough to stop before colliding, about three feet from the other zombie. It just took a while to remember what word to use.

"Hungry." He nods, or rather, creaks his head up and down on an inflexible hardly-responsive neck. Javert may have been somewhat stiff before his death, but all the blood congealing inside his body has produced a new level of rigidity in him.

Then he reaches forward and touches R's face, clumsy fingers fumbling blindly, poking at R's one grey wall eye lolling around. Strange. Is this what he's like too? He hasn't seen himself but he's pretty sure he hasn't spent long like...this. Whatever this is. Whatever before this was.

[shambler]

It's not every day another zombie apologizes for bumping into him. R's stunned. He's the one that should be saying sorry: sorry for infecting you, sorry for murdering you, sorry you're Dead like the rest of us. Sorry, but it doesn't get better. You're stuck.

R's "sorry" gets trapped in his throat.

He doesn't pull back at someone getting dangerously close to poking his eye out. The instinct isn't really there, not any more. He feels it like it's happening to someone else, a finger brushing against the squishy surface of the eye Howard put back in for him, a hand with no temperature grazing against his shattered cheek. R stands there like a lump, a smelly, listing-slightly-to-the-side lump, at the inspection as if it's not weird or invasive and there's the very real chance he could get his eye poked out all over again if Air slips. Anyway, it gives him time to work past that "sorry" lodged in his neck and come up with something else to say.

R's groan starts low and deep in his guts and works its way up his chest. "Me...too. Show you...ggh...ropes."

Does Air get it? He seems sharp for a new corpse, so maybe he does. R meets his eyes again and gives a pointed grunt, only this time he isn't looking for that man from the Cornucopia. Now they're on the same page.

[greatestdetectiveaward]

He continues to feel R's face for a while, holding him by the jaw, turning R's head side to side as if examining something inanimate. Which they might as well be, in some ways. Then he drops his hand and feels again at the wound in his neck, the mercy kill Maximus afforded him. Red blood turned black is spilled all down his orange outfit. He looks up at R again as if asking for an explanation. Is he dead?

Ropes. Ropes, ropes, ropes...Javert doesn't understand what R's talking about. Does R have ropes that they're going to use to catch something that will feed them? That sounds almost suspiciously like a plan.

Javert likes plans. He likes grids, routines, directives. He likes following a script.

"Hungrrrrrry."

[shambler]

(Plans? That's giving R way too much credit).

R doesn't try to pull his face away, although there's something behind his eyes that flickers as he watches Air trying out the new slit across his neck as if he's trying to figure out what it's there for. Oh...man. R thinks he can figure out what that means: either someone killed him or he did it to himself. Maybe he realized how bad the infection would get. R meets those gray eyes again, seeing the same old question in every other Dead's eyes. His own hand drifts over to his thigh, to the old bite under the shreds of his pants.

He looks away from Air, breaking contact because instead of everything graying out on him and not mattering, suddenly R feels guilty. Groaning out "sorry" won't change that question in his eyes. He'll always be asking it, up until someone kills him again.

At least they can bond over food. R rather bond right now. He shifts to the side and nods, his neck sagging until his chin dips to rest against his chest.

"We'll...find....Okay?" R keeps staring at the slit, the blackened edges, wishing he didn't have a part in that story. There's no takebacks. He can at least try to make Air's new life as a zombie easier to adjust to. Babysitting for corpses. "I'll...huhhelp."

[greatestdetectiveaward]

And just like that, the question is dismissed. Javert doesn't like to sit around wasting his time on philosophical questions. If he's dead, so be it. He needs to find something to occupy his time and give him purpose, and the driving hunger is authority enough.

Javert's mouth crumples into a bit of a frown. He reaches back to R and tugs at R's outfit, straightening the collar, brushing dust off the shoulders. Then he does the same to himself, although it's impossible to make the bloody garment look good. His attempts to line up the creases around the arms just makes the missing chunk where R bit him all the more painfully obvious.

"Two..." He gestures to R and then to himself. "Better than...one."

He seems to have spent all his verbal capital on those sentences. He doesn't say anything more for the moment.

[shambler]

That’s some good math right there. The fact he can even count up that high is amazing. R sits tight as Air tries to straighten him up - good luck, buddy - and lets the other zombie get it out of his system. There’s something comforting about falling into a routine, shuffling through the same thing you probably did when you were breathing and knowing at least that hasn’t changed. For all he knows, the guy was a big stickler for looking his best and now? He’ll be stuck at his worst, with that gaping slit slashed across his neck. It’s even in a spot where you can’t help but see it.

R can feel a wince trying to creep on his corpse’s face.

“Al…ways,” R tries to fill in the silence, his groan hesitating. “….Less…lonely?”

Does Air get what it feels like to be lonely or maybe he’s too new, still hung up on the math because there are only so many things a Dead brain can compute at once. He couldn’t have been up for more than a few hours, a few days. R hums out a moan, actually feeling nervous here and feeling on some level like he needs to say something before it gets awkward. Of all the zombies he’s been around and this is the one he gets shy with?

[greatestdetectiveaward]

The stare Javert gives R now is blank even for a corpse. Loneliness isn't something Javert really worries about; he didn't in life, and he most certainly doesn't now in death. He generally prefers solitude, not because he dislikes other people or because he keeps up any pretenses, but merely because it's free of distractions.

So no, R, he doesn't know what it feels like to be lonely.

He tugs with clumsy fingers at his collar again, as if it'll cover the hole in his neck. He doesn't like these clothes, even if they weren't bloody and grimy. He pulls at the cape, the blood-spattered one he took from R at the Cornucopia. It's an event he no longer remembers.

But the color matches R's clothing.

He unclasps it, slowly, and holds it out to R in a bundle.

[shambler]

R totally forgot about the cape, wrote it off as a lost cause like his ankle or his love life. Getting it back from the very guy he doomed to un-life was all kinds of awkward.

He could feel his face freezing up as he reached out automatically and grabbed it, his fingers touching the material stiff with old blood.

"...Thanks," R grunts. He has the urge to drop it somewhere, kick it under a piece of rubble, forget that it's proof that he couldn't control himself. R instead tries to sling it over his shoulder, making sure the other Dead can see him being polite and not, y'know, totally awkward over the unwanted gift. "Better."

It's a lie but he's banking on the fact Air's too freshly dead to pick up subtle things like lying or fudging around with the truth. It's not something zombies really do to each other anyway. R hurriedly changes the subject with a raspy groan.

"Get you...settled. Eat."

/wrap?

[greatestdetectiveaward]

Javert is oblivious to plenty of social cues on the best of days. As of right now, he merely feels pleased that the mismatched cape has found its rightful owner. That fills him with a sense of having done well, somehow, as if he's supposed to be setting things right and putting them where they belong.

A sort of smile and grimace combination tugs at the corners of his mouth at the next bit. "Eat."

Yes. That sounds good. That's the single-syllable answer to the question of hunger.