thearena | You Should Have Never Trusted Disneyland

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You Should Have Never Trusted Disneyland

WHO| Howard and anyone
WHAT| Howard gets back on his feet
WHEN| Late third week
WHERE| Frontierland and Tomorrowland
WARNINGS| Howard's pretty damaged and I'll describe some of his injuries in detail during tags.

Wyatt did a good job with Howard, and the medicine from the Capitol is top-knotch. In addition, Howard's always been somewhat resilient. It takes him a few days, mostly spent sleeping in the scaffolding of Thunder Mountain under Wyatt's watchful eyes and eating the few rats he can get in traps, but soon enough he's moving about again.

Protein's all well and good, but he and Wyatt will need something else before long. He remembers there are orchards around Tomorrowland, so as soon as he can walk again on his injured leg he decides to set out that way, under the cover of night. The dark scares him, but no more than the day. At least at night he can blend in and not be a blaring target.

He's discarded his white district outfit and replaced it with some of the tattered, moth-eaten souvenir clothing from one of the shops - an oversized black t-shirt of Scar from The Lion King, a pair of jeans with the Mickey head sown into the back pockets, and a big grey sweatshirt with the castle emblazoned on the front. It all highlights how very small he is, as if his body hasn't even made the slightest effort to fill out the clothing. He's sheared the leg off the jeans up above his injury on his lower thigh - while he isn't happy to be displaying a weakness, he needs quick access to it to clean it whenever he finds fresh water.

The worst of the cuts along his torso are hidden by the clothing, but his face is still a horrible mess, with some of the bitemarks scabbing and oozing periodically. The hole in his cheek and split from his mouth to his chin makes it hard to eat, and has left him with a stiffness in his neck. His head cants to the left whenever he's not thoughtfully trying to keep it straight.

The new folding knife never leaves his hand. Never.

It feels all wrong to go through Disneyland like this. He doesn't walk like a tourist or a kid. Instead he darts from shadow to shadow, perpetually glancing over his shoulder and doubling back in case anyone's following him. It takes well over an hour to get to Tomorrowland.

If he were a religious kid he'd offer a prayer of thanks to whatever god when he finds a patch of blackberries and tomatoes. He starts to fill the pockets of his sweater, then a lunchbox he looted from a souvenir shop, and then he lays out flat the cape he got at the start, throwing all the fruits he can gather onto it regardless of ripeness. He gathers it all into a makeshift sack, slings it over his back and starts the arduous journey back to Thunder Mountain.

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The first thing Howard will hear when he gets close is something that sounds like a cat, spitting mad and yowling up a storm.

It’s R’s attempt at an apology. Something that might keep Howard from bolting the moment he sees him squeezed in his hideaway.

After cleaning up the gore from eating that Tribute, R tries to straighten his clothes and fix himself up. He runs a hand through his hair, checks his eye (it’s still in: cool), even dunks his face for a second into the swamp and swishes the water before spitting it out. R feels squeaky clean. There’s not much he can do about the big dark stain all over his chest, but at least it’s not splashed all over his face. He empties his pockets and makes sure he didn't stash any leftovers in there. Anything he finds, R hurriedly stuffs into his mouth. The next thing he needs to do is harder than killing that Tribute - he needs to man up to Howard. R wants to look as non-threatening as possible.

Having chunks of his last meal falling out of his pockets won't help.

R picks up the cat on the way, stalking it down until it’s too tired to get away when he grabs it by the scruff of its scrawny neck. It gets a second wind by the time he makes it to Thunder Mountain. By the time he labors to where he sat with Howard, it’s hissing and clawing again. R’s just happy he resists the urge to kill it on the spot. He’s also proud he remembers to shuffle carefully over the bridge. This time he doesn’t fall through.

By the time Howard gets back, the zombie is jammed into an awkward squat, looking too big for the little space, holding onto a feral cat in his lap that lays back its ears flat against its skull and hisses. R’s head rests bent to the side, looking at nothing in particular as he drifts and waits. It’s the sound of footsteps against the fake stone that makes him look up.

“How…ward?” R moans tentatively. “Wuh…wait. Please? Talk.”

R starts to lurch to his feet and nearly brains himself against the low overhang. He remembers he jammed himself into here for a reason and settles back down, staring up at Howard. How long as it been, exactly? R thinks it might’ve been a week, two weeks, but he can’t remember. What he does know is that time hasn’t been good for his friend. Howard looks so beat and chewed up that if it wasn’t for that Living smell wafting off him, R would’ve mistaken him for a zombie himself. What happened to him?

Edited 2013-04-04 09:56 (UTC)

Howard's exhausted by the time he gets back, and as such, he's just a little careless. As he hobbles and staggers his way across the bridge, he just assumes that the figured hunched in the tunnel is Wyatt waiting for him. He doesn't notice the scent of the dead flesh from R's pockets or latest meal; his sense of smell is ruined by the infection growing in the hole in his own mouth, which makes swallowing taste foul and fills his sinuses with a noxious invisible cloud. It's dark, too, and he and Wyatt have agreed to use the fire minimally, to avoid attracting attention.

So he gets up the rail and into the tunnel and dumps his bag of fruit and lunchbox on the ground before he realizes who he's sharing space with. The white cape full of food is stained now from where tomatoes and blackberries burst and leaked, staining it bloody colors that look more sinister than their source, especially in the dim light of evening. He takes a moment to try and press flat the bandage on his chin, which is peeling away. Sweating from running back and forth has loosened the adhesive side.

And then he realizes that the frame of the body lurching to its feet isn't Wyatt, and the voice calling to him is certainly not Wyatt.

"You?!"

He's so startled he takes a step back onto the rigged bridge - and his foot plummets right through with a crack. He yelps and grabs the rail before he falls through entirely, landing on the tyre with his back, but he knows it'll take a few minutes to extract himself unaided, and until then he's completely at R's mercy.

Thankfully, being trapped here gives R enough time to finish his schpiel. His schpiel with pleases, that would sound like an apology if Howard's head weren't filled with images of being eaten by a pack of hungry zombies. R's slow grunts and wheezes are punctuated by the screaming of a cat that seems to come from right here in the tunnel.

"Shit, shit, oh my god, oh my god..." He swallows - a piece of bandage that's come loose gets stuck on his upper lip - and tries to lift himself from the awkward position. "Where's your friend, huh? She lying in wait too? You guys gonna split me down the middle, crack the wishbone with my sternum or something?"

When Howard suddenly staggers back, R thinks for a second the little guy broke his neck before he can get two groans into the apology. To his relief, Howard grabs onto something and flops back onto a tire like a turtle. Whew!

R uses the time to extracts himself from the alcove, almost letting go of the cat before remembering he’s supposed to hold onto it. He drags the cat by its scruff after him, oblivious to the yowls as he lurches out. There’s a steady stream of “shits” and “oh shits” bubbling out from Howard’s direction, R wincing when he gets past that and starts getting to the real meat of the problem. Of course Howard’s scared. R tells himself it’s make sense, he’d been on the verge of eating him, after all. The only thing that saved him was he was quick and knew the lay of the land way better than Karis. It still aches, though. His dislocated shoulder twitches, like he wants to bend down and help Howard. Instead R only slouches there, watching as the human struggles to lever himself back up.

Probably better he keep his distance. Between the horrified look on Howard’s face and the cat trying to make a getaway, R should keep his hands where they are.

R’s head lolls. “She’s…gone. It’s…just me.”

The sucky thing is Howard is dead on the mark. If she had been there, that’s totally how it would’ve gone down. A split with guts flying, blood splashing and R scooping Howard’s still-warm brains out. It’s just luck they ran into Beck before this. R thinks he could point that out. Somehow he doubts that would put Howard at ease. The best thing to do, he thinks, is try to steer the conversation away from Karis. She’s not here and anyway, it’s on him. He should learn to say no. Stand up for himself. Put that way ahead of “stand up better overall” on his priority checklist.

“Wanted…to talk,” R gasps. He gears himself for the longest thing he’d said since…uh, forever, he guesses. He’s not sure. With that Tribute he ate humming in his dry veins and stiff muscles, the words seem like they should come easier. It’s not that wall between him and the world this time. It’s because R really has no idea what to say. He claws forward anyway. “I’m sorry. I don’t…want to…hgh…hurt you. You’re…good. A friend. I…should be…good like…you. Not thing like…me. Want to be…better?”

The cat chooses then to let out an ear-splitting scream. It tries to claw its way up his arm, raking long black furrows in his skin.

“Am I…making sense?”

Edited 2013-04-04 20:31 (UTC)

Howard whimpers a bit as he listens, not in fear so much as pain - the sharp edge of the wagon tyre is opening up one of the cuts in his back that Wyatt tried so hard to stitch up, and blood is starting to seep through the t-shirt and sweater. He writhes and gets himself up on his elbows.

And he listens to R's little speech. The whole thing, even though it takes a while, as all things R says do. Maybe it's because he was friends with Orc, and he doesn't notice as much as other people when someone takes a long time to say something. Maybe it's because he just doesn't have it in him to run. He probably could outpace R, even injured, but instead he just stays there on the track, his leg dangling through, propped up on his arms with a slight wind chilling the small spot of blood on his back.

"I'm not good...fucking idiot..." It's unclear whether or not he's insulting R or himself.

He thinks about how he should have seen this coming. He looks at R and sees the future, if only because he knows the past. Howard has a long and varied history of getting close to people only to have it blow up in his face. The last string of betrayals stretches out behind him, and he reaches a hand up to touch his own face, expression crumpling up as if he's holding back tears. Eponine bit his face part off. Alpha tried to kill him. Aunamee stabbed him to death and Orc broke his nose and his parents left him.

Howards are there to be used until they're discarded. Like resources. Like anything else. Like people, in general. It's really just something he should resign himself to.

Howard supposes he makes for a good meat shield, or a good extra set of eyes, or a good pack mule to courier things around. He makes for a below-average bodyguard, an awful motivational speaker and a semi-decent morality pet. He can provide body heat, traps, world knowledge. Companionship.

He guesses it's not so bad to be used for companionship. He doesn't like the idea of getting broken down for parts and eaten at the end, but...

"Fine, just, whatever." The flight response drains out of him and he looks at R with a tortured expression. At R's wonky eye, rolling slightly off-track. He takes a deep breath, looks at the cat, pushes himself up entirely. He doesn't believe R won't eat him, but at the moment he can no longer find it in him to care.

His stance is unsteady and he nearly collapses when he gets back into the tunnel, massaging the shin of the leg that fell through the plank and feeling that damn spear wound that's made getting around so awful. He looks up at R and shakes his head, tone very serious. "Don't call yourself a 'thing', okay?"

R wishes Howard wouldn’t look at him like that. He tells himself that the fact they’re still having this conversation is a good sign. He should accept Howard’s fine, whatever because it can still be a start.

Howard’s progress back to the tunnel is almost zombie slow – it’s definitely zombie unsteady, like he’s walking drunk – and R has more than enough time to start whipping up words. The scent of new blood makes him glad he ate already. The hunger starts to sit up, forming a picture of Howard lying at his feet until he beats it back with a mental crowbar. It’s not a headshot. It’s enough to make the hunger go back to simmering under the surface. R stands over Howard with the cat in hand, the cat trying to take a shot at Howard almost out of principle. R jerks his shoulders in a shrug.

“Not...the point?” R hates it comes out as a question. Half the time it sounds like he’s asking, not telling. “We…can have this…philo-phil…other talk…later...?”

R does sigh this time, the sound coming out as a wheeze from his stabbed chest. He didn’t come here to argue about who – or what – counts as a person or a thing with Howard. He’s here because even he knows this is the right thing to do. After years of killing people, R tells himself that he could start doing the right thing more often and that starts with trying to make it up to Howard. R awkwardly starts the process of stooping down a safe distance from the human, folding his corpse down and down and finding that doing it with a live cat in hand makes it a lot harder than it should be. There. Now he isn’t looming over Howard. R strikes that off the checklist. The next part is trying to coax the guy away from looking like he’s going to curl up into a fetal position and cry. This one might be harder.

The zombie tightens his hold on the cat he drags into his lap. Instead of purring, it makes an angry warning noise in its chest. “My…point. I…should be…better friend. I’ll help you. Make…it up? Show you.”

R stares across the few feet at Howard, taking in what looks like bandaged bites on his face. There are signs of infection but they don’t match what should happen when something like him is involved. It’s not a Dead’s bite. R wants to ask who did this, as if he could shuffle off and start his apology by returning the favor with a few bites of his own. Now he’s not being good.

Edited 2013-04-05 00:58 (UTC)

Howard cringes a little as R approaches, but doesn't run, nor does he rise to his feet. He just clutches the puncture wound in his thigh a little tighter, feeling the pressure turn to a sort of pain that blurs out other feelings, that makes processing information easier. He's used to chewing on things, his fingernails and the inside of his mouth, but with his face as such a mess Wyatt's tried to discourage him from doing that too much, and Howard's trying not to disappoint.

"Is that why you bought a cat? Is that, like, an apology cat? How am I supposed to believe you haven't mentally named that cat Dipping Sauce or Garnish or whatever?"

Well, except that that's something Howard would do, and R doesn't seem to be quite as keen on nicknames as Howard is. Furthermore, Howard doesn't really care - if R's here to try to lull him into a false sense of security, he just wishes R would give up the charade and get it over with.

The fact that R isn't throws Howard off balance, makes him want to put trust in someone again, because it's hard and lonely not to believe in anyone. It's what makes falling into the same of cycles of trust and abuse so easy, how difficult the loneliness of self-sufficiency is. As much as Howard's instincts and experiences are screaming for him to pull away, not just from R but from everyone, he needs human contact. Forget standing up for himself; he can't stand on his own at all.

So much wasted effort on all these pretty words if R just plans on turning around and eating him. Howard wants to believe that he just misunderstood what happened with Karis. He wants to believe R's honest.

"Here, let me just...take that. She's turning you into zombie jerky." Howard pulls his arms up and takes the cat from R, reaching up and snagging the nape of the neck and pinng the front legs down against the cat's torso. He brings the cat close to his chest and holds it tight, until it squeaks in protest, its little lungs and ribs being cramped in by the strange embrace. Howard seems to take some comfort in having something warm and furry under his control. He strokes its face a little, even as it hisses at him.

He talks more to the cat than to R. "Look, I...I don't. I don't know if I can believe you, okay? I'm sorry. I know you wouldn't be wasting all these words apologizing if you didn't mean it. You see all these bite marks? That's from a friend too. A good friend. So I don't need a long speech or nothing, I just...be patient with me."

Put like that, R realizes bringing the cat is painfully, obviously stupid. Like a live animal will fix anything. R can’t blush but he can hang his head, ashamed and embarrassed. R almost misses the days where he doesn’t feel anything at all. Thinking about it some more, he changes his mind. It aches, it sucks, he wishes he handled this better, but this is closer to what being human must feel like. It’s not all Sinatra and Elvis and warm fuzzy feelings in his chest cavity. It’s also stuff like…this, whatever this is.

Hard. That’s the word he’s looking for. It’s harder than swaying somewhere and groaning. It’s really hard.

R only shrugs again at Howard’s nicknames for the cat. It’s just a cat. It doesn’t have a name. But Howard’s reaching for it now, getting close enough that they could almost touch if it weren’t for a few inches, and R thinks that in itself is promising. For a moment he expects Howard to kill the cat on the spot, only he doesn’t, instead holding it close like a pissed off, feral teddy bear that may or may not have ticks and ringworm. The kinked tail flicks against his leg. Despite the hissing, the cat seems to prefer being with Howard than with him, only giving a half-hearted swipe with its claws. R slouches where he sits and absorbs Howard’s words.

“Patient,” R repeats. Patient and waiting, got it. Can do. The zombie falls silent for a long moment, as if he’s started to drift off again, when he focuses his eye back on Howard. “…Why…would your friend…bite?”

R flops up a hand to vaguely gesture at Howard’s hot mess of a face. His mouth sags down in a frown. They don’t look at the Arena the same way, Howard and him, and he’s realizing that life to the little guy here is a totally different story, complicated and everything that R struggles to really get. In some ways, being a corpse is easier.

Patient is good. Some ugly, resentful little part of Howard figures it'd be hypocritical for R to not be patient with people, given that he spits out words about as fast as Stevie from Malcolm in the Middle.

But it doesn't feel like patience, to Howard, to wait for R to stagger and drag his way through a simple question. It feels like...bravery or apathy or loyalty, or maybe some cosmopolitan cocktail of the three, mixed and blended beyond the point of having distinct components. It's not strenuous, at least, not in a boring, distracted way. It's only hard in that it means staying still and willing himself to believe R's not about to reach forward and bite him.

Howard shrugs a little and pats at the bandage coming loose on his cheek. "I make friends with violent people. It's kind of a bad habit. Some people collect, like, stamps or trains or glass clowns or whatever. I collect psychos and alcoholics and..."

As if to prove his point, the cat scratches his wrist, tearing a pink line down it that blots up with tiny dark orbs of blood. Howard frowns and squeezes it tighter, as if that will somehow calm it down, and it kicks its back feet at him in vain. He pinches the kitty's ears and pushes a finger along the line of its nose and flicks at its whiskers, clearly not at all accustomed to soothing cats so much as wrangling them into submission. Even now he has it in a position where he could snap its back, even while he rocks it back and forth slightly, feeling its fur under his fingertips.

"And zombies. I make friends with zombies."

And he hums a snatch of Are You Lonesome Tonight?. He doesn't know if that's why R's here, if not for hunger than out of a need for companionship or out of a desire to set things right, but he won't deny that he's using R right now to stave off isolation.

R wants to say Howard needs better options in friends if that’s what he has to choose from.

He doesn’t let himself get distracted by the forced strains of Elvis coming at him in the dark. Not now. Now isn’t the time to slide back into that fog and realize uh oh, a few days passed and Howard’s run into someone like Karis. Karis who puts torture before murder. R puts in the extra effort not to float away into his head and digs his heels into the now. The silence between them doesn’t feel the same as before – it’s not comfortable, it’s not okay, it’s choked with Howard’s mortality bleeding between them. Thinking about it, R decides he doesn’t want to be the kind of friend that Howard was talking about.

Which is great and all, but what’s the saying? R has to strain his rotting skull to remember. Oh, yeah. Right. Put his money where his mouth is. Says the dead guy who forgot what it’s like to use money. You don’t even want to know where his mouth’s been.

Okay, okay, fine. Bad example. R sucks at this.

Sooner or later that cat is either going to calm down or it’s going to claw its way up to Howard’s jugular. The thing is making evil eyes to go with its evil hissing. R watches as Howard manhandles the cat, feeling a groan rising up in his throat as he looks across those few feet at his friend and secretly thinks he better hurry up and kill it before it gets any funny ideas.

“Friends…are…more coming? More like…?”

The words die out on R but he’s totally prepared this time. The zombie gnashes and clicks his teeth, pointing at Howard’s ruined face. If more of Howard’s friends are on their way, then R thinks it’s the least he can do to make sure there isn’t a round two. Not on his watch.

Edited 2013-04-05 10:46 (UTC)

From down the tunnel came the sound of footsteps and a gentle, wet flapping.

Wyatt picking his way through the booby-traps, a long length of twine hanging from one hand, heavy with the fish he'd hauled out of the lake, fish that were still determinedly wriggling. Their tails curling, gills flashing. (Fish like he'd never seen - diamond shaped with ruby-red bellies and teeth like somethin' off the backside of his nightmares.) Blood was dripping from his other hand where one of the little beasts had taken a chunk the size of a nickel out of the flesh between his thumb and forefinger.

He heard the voices as he neared, Howard's and one he didn't recognize, and he picked up his pace. He came around the corner, face tight with concern,... and stopped dead, eyes flicking between Howard, the strange young man sitting across from him, and the cat, yellow-eyed and snarling in Howard's lap.

"Howard," he said after a beat, eyeballin' the stranger out of the corner of his eye. "Everythin' alright?"

"I'm okay," Howard says, extricating a hand from trapping the cat to wave it at Wyatt. His eyes dance over the fish, the strange, wriggling piranhas that he remembers from the lake. Given that the last time he saw them, they were biting at R's legs as R betrayed him, they seem like a cosmic sign that maybe he should rethink this whole rekindling a friendship thing.

He could scream now. He could tell Wyatt to get R away. He's not alone anymore, he has Wyatt, and he doesn't need to continue extending his trust to a hungry dead boy who wanted to turn him into a human buffet only a few days ago. But he doesn't, because he's already resigned himself to the idea of all friendships and alliances being temporary bandages to cover the injuries the former connections inflicted, rather than bonds in their own right.

"Wyatt, this is Rob. He's, um." He doesn't say 'we can trust him', because as far as Howard's concerned they can't. "He's dead. He brought me a cat."

He says that latter sentence with a sort of surprise, as if it's a pleasant gift and not an apology cat.

"Rob, this is Wy. And this is Dipping Sauce." The cranky feral tabbycat growls. Howard squeezes her a little tighter, appreciating how warm she is against his ribs. He turns back to R. "We can trust Wyatt."

He leans in closer to Dipping Sauce's nose, whispering just to her, "we can trust him, can't we?"

R looks up at the weird little twang in Wyatt's voice. He's heard human voices before but there aren't many that sound like that.

"Hi." The zombie hunches his shoulders in greeting, flops a gray hand up from his thigh and tries to look slightly less dead than usual. "I'm here to...talk."

He's not sure how that went as a first impression. With the closed space, he's probably reeking of decomposition and swamp water, but considering he can smell Howard from here, he's not the only one here who smells, so there's that. Yeah.

Since Howard doesn't sound too worried about Wyatt being here, R assumes this is probably one of his other friends, the ones that aren't trying to eat him or bite his face off. One of the cool ones. He seems like he's wary about having a corpse in here and R thinks he likes that about Wyatt. He sounds concerned, which makes R relax slightly.

R isn't sure what to do now that intros are over. Should he get up and shake hands? Assume since he's said his piece that he should shuffle off and give Howard his space? What did humans do in situations like this?

Edited 2013-04-07 03:37 (UTC)

Wyatt's eyes made another slow pass around the circle. He wasn't quite sure what to make of Rob, as Howard called him, or what to do with the strange remark of "he's dead." His first impulse was that dead men didn't stay in the arena, they didn't wave or speak or bring presents - odd as the offering was. But the boy certainly looked dead enough: his skin gray and thin, his eyes and cheeks hollowed and dark, his lips and teeth so dark they might have been black. And if he wasn't mistaken, there was the distinct sweet smell of rotten meat coming from him.

The moment stretched and he knew he aught to say somethin'...

His mustache twitched. "...Obliged."

He glanced back at Howard, attention flicking to the scratches running red on the boy's arm. "Yer bleedin' again, Howard," he said gently. He wasn't certain why, but there seemed to be a tension - an uncertainty in the air - and he wasn't sure what do about it other than to stay calm himself and hope it rubbed off. "Why don't ya let me take care of that?"

"Right, right, okay. I opened up a cut on my back, too. Just needs some patching up." Howard looks over the fish, then to the sack he's brought back from Tomorrowland, then up at Wyatt. There's a trust there, one necessary to allow Wyatt to stitch him up again. Over the last few days Howard would even say they've gotten close. "We got fish, we got fruit, we got a cat. We pretty much got ourselves a whole buffet tonight."

There's a cracking sound and a squeal, and the cat in Howard's arm goes limp, its spine twisted and snapped. Howard doesn't even seem to blink over having killed it. He continues to stroke it for a few seconds, then dumps it on the ground.

"Think it's worth starting a fire? The tunnel should hide most of the light, and it's dark enough that nobody's going to see smoke." He sounds almost hopeful, although he looks at Wyatt as if he expects to be told that that's an unwise idea. It probably is.

He gestures to some of the other items he's dragged back from Tomorrowland and the outskirts of Frontierland during the day. The tunnel does look a bit more full now, not just with three people stuffed in but because Howard's been spending the day indulging his packrat habits. He looks as if he's showing it off to both R and Wyatt. "I got us a few thermoses for water, and we can use the big stuffed Mickey Mouses and extra clothes as bedding."

R follows the pointing, the ghost of approval on his face. You want to talk hoarding, you've come to the right zombie. He likes hoarding. R gets it, even if Howard is way more practical about his hoarding tendencies than R.

The death of the cat doesn't drag out a twitch from R. The only thing he feels is a sense of relief that it's not clawing up Howard and yowling and that means Howard and Wyatt are probably set, food wise. Howard seems to think so. Now that the cat is no longer squirming, R drags his attention back to Wyatt, trying to figure out what he means by "obliged". Obliged to do what? Hold his breath around a zombie? What is it he's obliged to do? Is this some new Living slang? How long has he been dead and out of the loop? R gnaws on that word for a bit and decided he won't get it short of asking. The important thing is Wyatt's been open about showing that he cares about Howard, R now convinced he's definitely one of the cool ones.

"I could...keep...watch?" R suggests, trying to prove he can be useful here. Besides, with these close walls, and the heat of the day, R knows he's probably on the ripe side. They probably need to air the place out. "I could...stop anyone....coming, help you guys...out."

Edited (typos, typos everywhere) 2013-04-09 09:44 (UTC)

The death of the cat brought no reaction from Wyatt either. It was hardly the first they'd killed and so long as it wasn't intentionally suffering, it was the for best.

He did however nod appreciatively over Howard's spoils. Even if they were more for Howard's comfort than actual need, he couldn't deny their usefulness. If they could manage to find some thread somewhere, he might be able to re-purpose one of his hooks to sew them into a blanket to cover the tunnel entrance and block light in or out, or maybe they could fashion themselves a net. That would certainly make fishin' a hell of a lot easier....

"I'm gunna need the light to see yer back anyway," he agreed, giving Howard and R the go ahead pointed. (And he might just have to cauterize the still bleeding wound on his hand, but he didn't say that, seeing no reason to trouble the boys with it.) "Just be sure keep it real low like."

He looked sidelong at R, "And if ya think there's gunna be trouble, you let me know."

It wasn't so much that he doubted R, as that he didn't underestimate the determination of some of their fellow tributes.

Edited 2013-04-09 11:57 (UTC)

"How's your eyesight?" Howard asks R. He doesn't know if death is good or bad on the eyes, but he read a story once about zombies being able to see in the dark, and he doesn't know if that's a creation of fiction or a legitimate ability. Howard pulls a lighter out from his pocket. He got a fire-starting kit from a sponsor at the beginning of the Arena, and it's been slightly heartening to see that gifts have kept coming in for him, if irregularly. He hopes it's not that he appears so vulnerable, as that one fangirl called him, but he'll take vulnerable and worth-spending-money-on over too-boring-to-revive anyday. "No eating me or Wyatt in our sleep, okay? We're off-limits."

It's a joke, but that doesn't mean that it's not a pointed one.

He starts up a small fire, mostly just embers. The orange light flicks around the inside of the tunnel, making the three of them look like they're going to hunker down and tell ghost stories. Then he lays one of the Sponsor parachutes out and starts dressing the cat, turning a bit so Wyatt can have access to the injury on his back with the light.

"I found netting, too, at the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. The holes might be too big for piranhas, but who knows? If not we can maybe repurpose some chain-link fence to a fish trap."

It's strangely familiar, to act as if they're planning for the future, rather than just living from day to day. Tomorrow they might all be dead, slaughtered by Aunamee or Grey or god knows who else was out there, looking for victims. But it's one nice step above just basic survival, to start building and collecting. To plan not just for food today, but tomorrow. To sleep on bedding and not just on the cement floor.

What a fucked-up little family, Howard thinks, looking at Wyatt, R, and the gutted cat.

The more he talks to Wyatt, the more R thinks he likes him: he can see the guy looking at his corpse but he's also talking past that, talking at him like he can follow along like the rest of the class and that's actually very cool of him. He wishes he could hit him with a thumbs up - or anything aside from a grunted "okay" and a wobbly nod.

"I'll keep....a...lookout tonight," R adds, staring up at Wyatt. He'll ignore the fact he's rolling with one eye now. Having two eyes as a zombie is more of a bonus anyway, it's not a requirement. "It's...okay. Better...sight and...smell."

It'd be hard to explain what it's like when you're dead, what it's like when the hunger is on the prowl and you can smell Life - R doesn't even try. Now's not the time anyway, not if he wants to be on good behavior (corpse probation? Is that what this is?) and instead he sits tight as Howard pulls apart the cat because humans are picky about eating everything and anything. Compared to a zombie, he's downright surgical, R watching with a dull interest and leaning forward. The fire crackles as the little guy works, a few small pops from the glowing embers between R and the two humans.

The zombie stares into the fire for a bit, trying to think about what he should do if anyone does try to make a pass tonight. Turn them around? Kill them? Is it okay if he eats them, too? R knows damn well if he doesn't go for the brain, they'll pop back up like Air and then Howard and Wyatt will be in trouble.

Eventually his eye travels back to Howard and Wyatt behind him. The low light flickers across their faces, casting them in shadow.

Wyatt set his string of fish down beside the cat for cleaning and quickly fetched what remained of the medical supplies. After all the patching up Howard had needed before, there was much left, but he figured there'd be enough to touch up the boy's back and to take care of those new scratches.

He sat behind Howard, working silently, but efficiently, removing the old bandage, re-cleaning the wound, and applying a new covering with all the new-found ease of someone who'd done it before.

Eventually, he spoke up, eyes still on the task at hand even as he addressed the strange young man across the fire. "Iffen ya don't mind my asking, Rob, how'd ya come to be as ya are?"

Maybe it was somethin' new the Captiol had cooked up, maybe not. Only one way to find out as Wyatt saw it.

Howard carves away at the cat, skinning it first and setting the hide aside before cutting it up from pelvic bone to the base of the jaw. The bones make little tugging and sucking sounds as they're pulled separate from the flesh. Blood covers his arms to the wrist and pools in little streams along the uneven surface of the parachute. He organizes it, setting guts to the side and pulling out the ribs and spine, dismembering it, setting aside limbs. There's a pink plastic tray with Rapunzel on it that can be used as a pan to slowly cook it, if it's propped far enough above the fire to not melt, and the limbs get arranged in there. He uses his old stained white outfit to wipe up his hands.

He winces every few moments as Wyatt works, mostly during the recleaning, but stays still. It strikes him that he never asked R that question. He didn't think it was important. Their lives before the Arena and the Capitol don't seem to much matter here, even though Howard can always feel the FAYZ bearing down on him, pressing and pinning him down. But when it came to meeting R, and Wyatt, he always thought it was more important who you were, not what happened to you. Maybe he's been wrong all along.

Listening to Wyatt speak takes a little getting used to, R finding he has to hang onto every sentence so he can break it down, realize he's nowhere as hard to understand as that...other guy he ran into at the swamp. It's the twang, he thinks. It's so much different than the accent both Howard and he have that he's distracted from watching the cat being opened up.

The question's not a new one. It's one of the very first questions a new zombie would probably ask himself once he got to the stage where he was actually putting thoughts together. R pauses for only a few seconds, a fast pause in his world, as he stares at the firelight playing across Wyatt's face and that mustache of his. He's seen corpses with facial hair, of course, but Wyatt's mustache looks somehow better, even if he probably needs a haircut. Maybe. R's out of the loop with what counts as fashion for people these days. He does think it's a cool mustache.

"I don't...know. None of...us...do," R admits. "Just...happened. I think. Infec...tions spread."

At least that's what most likely happened with him. He was probably one of the later victims, not anywhere near patient zero. Bad luck or he sucked at the whole survival thing because it hadn't caught on like it has with Julie. R realizes how this looks and decides he better be up front if he's gonna be hanging around Howard and Wyatt, throw them a warning if they don't already know.

R looks from Wyatt to Howard. "I'm...infected, so...I could...can," think of Air, "infect others. Sorry."

He tries to sound as sorry as he feels. It's a different kind of sorry than the one he feels for what he did to Howard. It's older, ingrained. R's sure he won't go trying to chew up either of them, even if that urge is always there in the background. For now they're good. And he can beat it if it gets worse. That's what a friend would do.

Wyatt looked up, eyes moving over R again, slowly and measuringly. Expression unreadable in the low light as he once more sized up the dead boy.

"That somethin' we need to be worried about?" he asked after a beat. He didn't mean it to be a malicious sort of question, more curious and maybe a little cautious. R hadn't made any particularly threatening moves yet, so Wyatt was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he wasn't certain he fancied bein' dead either.

"As long as it's not airborne." Howard rolls his shirt back down as Wyatt finishes up there, finishes up with his arm, and lays down on some of the soft materials he's dragged back. He's exhausted. The combination of a slim diet, running around, and physically healing has completely drained him.

Coping takes energy too.

He lets Wyatt and R keep talking, half-listening to them, half-listening to the sizzle of the cat meat in the pan. He doesn't feel safe, far from, but this is the closest he's been to relaxed in a little while. If he keeps his eyes open and on the glow of the embers, he doesn't have to close his eyes and see Eponine's broken head in his lap. He breathes deep and slowly, and after a few moments his eyelashes flutter and he dozes off.

[OOC: feel free to skip Howard over if you want to continue bonding with R and Wyatt! He's just going to snooze.]

R doesn’t realize Howard’s dozed off until he glances over and finds the human asleep, slumped off to the side. The zombie slowly turns his attention back to Wyatt, staring at him across the fire, feeling the slight heat playing on his corpse's face like an afterthought because it is.

"I don't...know," R goes for the truth. He doesn't have brain power, literally, to come up with a convincing lie and maybe that's one of the few pluses about being Dead. R hunches his shoulders. "Could be...different here. If I get...hungry, I'll...leave."

R thinks that should work out for the three of them, checking and double-checking his groans. Yeah, definitely should work. Wyatt's got Howard's back because he's one of the cool friends, so R can worry just a little bit less now. R keeps it to himself, but he thinks Howard's fangirl might've been right - he really is vulnerable. Maybe with someone like Wyatt, he'll be able to hang on a little bit longer.

With Howard sleeping, safe for the moment, Wyatt relaxed, leaning back against the tunnel wall, legs stretched out beside the fire.

"So what Howard said about eatin' us in our sleep, ya actually do that? Eat people?"

Again, it was more curious, than mean. Wyatt had never met a dead person before, and, with Howard's vote of confidence and R's promise that he wouldn't kill them, he was doin' his best to keep an open mind.

You Should Have Never Trusted Disneyland

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