We'd Live on the Blooms Carried in on the Breeze

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Who| Wyatt, Julie, R, Howard, Hyperion and Daniel Jackson
What| Wyatt's hopes and dreams get crushed, R gets eaten by piranhas.
Where| Tom Sawyer's Island
When| Week 5
Warnings/Notes| Death. Tag order Howard, Julie, R, Wyatt, Hyperion?

After the fireworks, Howard knows better than to relax. He knows that the sense of security is fragile at best, if not entirely illusory. Even still, there's a sense of comfort and stability that comes from rebuilding. Howard insisted on returning to the wreckage of Thunder Mountain, despite the explosions, to try and salvage some of the rope and traps they'd used before, but having done that, he's ready to put Frontierland behind him and move forward. Survival doesn't leave much room for sentiment, a sad reality both he and Julie seem to feel too keenly.

His little pack of people, the Mickey Mouse Club, as he's thinking of them, has relocated to Tom Sawyer's Island. That there's only one bridge to and from the island is a little bit of a concern, but it seems to be the safest place for the moment, and there's no sign that anyone else has spent much time here. The Tree House offers a nice view of anyone coming, though Howard doesn't particularly like having to climb up there with his injuries. His right hand has become almost entirely unusable; aside from twitching his thumb and index finger, he can't manage anything more with it. It's immobilized by pain and numbness. He cradles it to his chest when he's at rest.

The view from the Tree House is unfortunate in another way, too; from up there, it's undeniable to see the havoc the fireworks wrought. Some parts of Disneyland are still smoking. More uncomfortable still, the faces of the dead appear to seem closer from up here, and Howard suspects that if they're in a bubble, they're closer to the ceiling at this location. He doesn't like being up next to the enlarged visages of his fallen competitors. Something about it gives him, for lack of a better word, 'the creeps'.

Howard sits at the Treasure Trove, using his knife to carve at a piece of wood. He's trying to complete R's pirate outfit by crafting a peg leg. It isn't easy doing it one-handed, and he keeps the piece of wood in place by trapping it between his ankles and the ground. It's shoddy work, much shoddier than he'd like to admit, but R seems to appreciate it, and that's what matters. Howard doesn't know of any better way to show affection for someone than to give them things, and he wants to encourage R to realize that while Howard's still smarting over almost getting eaten, they're still cool. They're still bros. Friends.

The four of them. Friends.

"Whose turn is it to see if we caught anything in our snares?" The traps they set haven't yielded much on the Island, but there are still some in the buildings of Frontierland and around Adventureland. Howard's been trying to pull his weight with the group, but Wyatt's advised him against going off on his own in the battered condition he's in, so he's been left to more domestic tasks.

Comments

For R

[hi_there_aliens]

There was nothing like seeing the Gamemakers at work. Daniel's muscles gave a twinge of protest as he carefully navigated the bridge. He'd had to make a mad dash once they started falling. The fireworks had been both designed to shock and awe, and then some; they had come exploding around the park suddenly in loud bangs and fizzle-pops. Then the cannons had begun to roll, the reports cracking the air. More deaths rolled through like a tide rolling in.

It was clear that the Gamemakers didn't want them hunkering down. It probably wasn't so easy as staying inside either, not if one took Wyatt's words as they were. If they had true control over the Arena, staying out of the line of fire wasn't going to do much. Keep moving. That was the plan for now. It wasn't, in his opinion, a good enough plan. This was only survival. this wasn't stopping the games, ensuring a way out for the survivors; had this been any other situation, any other planet, Daniel was sure he'd have seen a more solid way out of this mess.

Evening drew close. With it, came the sound of what he'd come to recognize as Panem's anthem. Hands tight on the rickety side-rails, Daniel turned, dreading what faces he'd seen in the holograms this time.

Re: For R

[shambler]

R isn't thinking straight. That's about every single day for him, but it's worse than usual and he can’t concentrate. All he can think about is the looks on his friends' faces.

He screwed up, bad. His friends are in danger all because he attacked a man when he was starving and he didn’t eat him. It’s one of the few times R actually wishes he killed someone, because if he had, Julie and Howard would be safe. They wouldn’t be hostages. That’s about the gist of what goes through R’s decayed skull as he treks away from the man-made island, each hobbling step taking him further and further away and feeling like a huge mistake with each passing minute.

It occurs to R after awhile maybe he shouldn’t trust the guy he almost killed to keep his word. For all he knows, he’s big on grudges. He needs to go back.

What he also needs is help. Backup. Cavalry. Whatever the Living call it these days – he needs that. Soloing it last time didn’t really get him anywhere.

R shuffles across the bridge, raising his head up. It’s night. Again. He has no idea what time it is, the zombie peering out into the dark with his good eye. The other one bumps up against the eyepatch but stays in.

It’s his lucky day: there is someone out there, not far away at all. They’re only a shadow in the night, but they’re reasonably tall, probably a man, not hunched over and swaying like another corpse and while he’d almost prefer Karis at this point because he knew how good she was at this, he also wants to make sure Julie and Howard aren’t next on the menu. What R needs is another Living person. He’ll explain on the way, even if he has to strong-arm him into helping. The closest thing to a panic a zombie can feel makes R even sloppier than usual.

R slouches up, limping on his stump, and slaps a hand down on the man’s upper arm. His fingers close, dead man tight, around his bicep.

“Hhhhggh…” R’s in too much of a hurry to get those two words help me out. At this point, who cares? Once he drags his cavalry back to the island, he’s sure he can see for himself they need help. It’ll work out. It has to.

[hi_there_aliens]

Another flicker, and another face, this one he didn't recognize, and the sky darkened again. Yet another Tribute joined the list of the dead. The crickets hesitantly began to chirp once again.

That was when a hand, bony and surprisingly strong, clamped down on his bicep, the fingers digging painfully in. Daniel's heart gave a skip. His head snapped around, and what he saw there made his heart try to really give climbing right out of him a serious go. It was that Tribute from before, the one that had tried to eat him while he was sleeping weeks ago.

Somewhere along the line, he'd earned himself new injuries and an eyepatch to cover up the part of his face Daniel had nearly caved in. He was too close, practically right on top of him, with nothing but the murky lake around them. The fingers squeezed as a groan bubbled out. The archaeologist was both so startled and so afraid then that the swears that come out are in about four different languages and jumbled in on each other.

Those fingers began to squeeze. Daniel reacted, more instinct than anything else, he tried to push him off, using all his strength.

[shambler]

- Really?!

R couldn't believe his luck. The one person he had to grab and it was another one of the guys he tried to eat.

Predictably Sneezy didn't take it too well.

The human immediately started trying to jerk away and escape because he had every reason to considering how their last run-in ended up. R hung on stubbornly because it was his first instinct to hang on and not let go and if he did, he'd lose his chance of backup. He needed this Tribute. R knew first hand he could handle himself. He could help save Julie and Howard, he was sure he of it!

R's fingers kept squeezing as he tried to throw his weight backward and drag his "helper" back toward Tom Sayer Island, the zombie not aware he was holding on way too hard now. His fingers began to dig into the other Tribute's flesh, punching into the bicep and starting to dig bloody furrows. His foot's stump caught on the creaking planks under them, R's sense of balance all over the place as he wobbled dangerously.

His mouth opened as he tried to get a word out, anything, even those two grunts if those still count. He hoped they counted. There had to be a way to convince this man in four words or less.

[hi_there_aliens]

For having parts of him missing, and the rest of him looking like it might follow suit at any moment, the zombie had a surprisingly strong grip. Daniel had expected him to stagger back, but the Tribute latched on with a grip that would make a rottweiler jealous. Sharp trails of fire went up his shoulder as the fingers dug in against the shove. Blackened nails broke skin, and dragged angry red lines down his arm as he tried to lurch back. Daniel could only stare, frozen, as the Tribute's mouth opened. The same deteriorating teeth greeted him. All it would take was for him to lung forward and keep pulling.

The training the SGC made him go through came through the fear.

He grabbed at the Tribute's wrist, prying at his grip. At the same time, the archaeologist kicked forward, trying to knock the remaining ankle out from under the Tribute.

[shambler]

This was off to the worst start ever. R wanted to snarl and groan that he needs to cut it out right now.

So far he managed to hold on but he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep it up. There was a huge difference grabbing onto a human long enough to bring him down and start taking chunks out. Holding onto one and trying not to hurt him was another ball game, R finding out the hard way it was so much harder than he thought. The man grabbed at his wrist hard enough to crush skin to bone.

A human would wince, maybe let go. It would hurt.

R was more concerned about his stump threatening to give out on him. The kick sent R tumbling against the railing. It cracked, rotted out from the inside. Another hit like that and R would end up head-first into the swamp.

Pushing himself off, R threw himself back into the fray, putting everything into dragged the man the way he wanted him to go. He reached out and his gray hand slapped against the other man's shoulder, grappling for purchase, trying to get a fistful of clothing - anything at all to make this easier.

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel almost went staggering in after the Tribute as they smacked into the railing Despite looking so gangly, the zombie still carried enough weight to be a problem.

His balance was almost thrown off. Whatever he'd had before had been questionable at best, but along the way, the Tribute had suffered enough injury to make it more of a miracle he was shambling anywhere. For being so slow - at least, normally, when he wasn't out for meat - the zombie was surprisingly fast. Call it properly motivated. And oh geez, was he properly motivated, because the zombie came lunging back at him.

There was a chance Daniel wouldn't get lucky this time. He had to rely on his own speed and agility; if he could put some distance between them, he could leave him behind again. The moment he saw an opening, the archaeologist shoved him as hard as he could.

[shambler]

Between his naturally awesome coordination and his missing foot, R didn’t have a chance. The shove hit him hard in the chest.

He flailed out instinctively, grabbing onto anything. R caught a glimpse of his hand tearing red tracks across the man’s face, fingers catching against his glasses and knocking them off. They vanished over the side with a splash. His turn. R smashed into the railing. He felt something catch and drag along the back of his head - a big fat splinter of wood taking out a chunk of his skull and hair, his brain suddenly exposed. White sparked in front of his eye. For a split second R thought he was dead again, really dead.

Then he tumbled into the swamp, wood splashing with him as the zombie sank like a rock. Murky water, cloudy with scum. He thought he tried to swim, only he didn’t remember how to do anything other than go right to the bottom.

It wasn’t ocean deep. Thank God! R finally reached the bottom after a minute or two.

Shit! He wanted to kick himself until his head caved in. Now Sneezy would be gone by the time he got out of here.

The thought of Julie and Howard back at the island made R kick into overdrive, cavalry or no cavalry. Groping around blindly, unable to see, his smell shot by the water around him, R tried to get up and start walking along the bottom of the swamp. His foot shuffled forward, the stump dragging in slow mo, almost feeling weightless for a change. The zombie kicked up more mud. R got a total of two, three, four feet before he got tangled up in thick weeds along the bottom – the more he tried to bulldoze his way forward, the worst it got until he couldn’t move his legs at all. R’s mouth dropped open in a frustrated snarl as he got the idea to claw at the weeds. He felt more than saw them. His fingers fumbled.

The piranhas rolled in a few minutes later. By the size of the splashing, the Capitol commentators would guess it was the whole school of them.

They went for the softest bits first. A few hundred pecks at whatever flesh was exposed. Most of them attacked the best parts like his eyes and nose and mouth, R going blind as he lost his good eye in the first hour. The very last thing he saw was a piranha’s teeth latching onto his eyeball. Light’s out.

They didn’t kill him fast. He was too big, too Dead. R wasn’t going anywhere. They could afford to be lazy.

Time blurred, stopped, and then didn’t exist. Fish came and went and more replaced them, each piranha swimming away with mouthfuls of his corpse, little chunks that didn’t seem like a big deal until they added up. Eventually they started nipping at the back of his head, discovering the section of his skull that got shaved away when R fell in. That set the piranha school off into another feeding frenzy, the swamp water foaming all over again as they attacked his brain.

It was another few hours before they finally burrowed deep enough to kill him.

R’s cannon boomed almost a day later.