thearena | (no subject)

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WHO| Wyatt and Maximus
WHAT| ~~As they continue to deny their feelings for each other~~ Max comforts Wyatt after the deaths of all his friends.
WHERE| Frontierland. The remains of Thunder Mountain.
WHEN| Backdated to shortly after the deaths of Howard, Julie, and R.
WARNINGS| Mentions of death, inanimate object violence, and bromance.

Howard, Julie, R.

Went he'd left, they'd been smiling. Laughing.

Alive..

And now... now...

He didn't understand how it had happened. He'd left to keep them safe - together. He put himself in danger instead. He'd promised. He'd told Howard he would keep him safe. Wouldn't let anyone hurt him.

But they'd taken him. And Julie. And R. There had been just enough time from the first cruel blast of the cannon for him to make it back, to watch as the flying machine scooped them up and took them away.

Leaving him alone with the unlit fire. R's unfinished leg. Dark, pooling stains that seemed to reach out to him like bloody accusing fingers.

He'd left them and they had died. He'd broken his promise. He'd failed.

He drifted away from the island, numb, their faces burned into the inside of his eyelids, flashing, reminding him, every time he blinked. His heart seemed to beat out their names.

Howard. Julie. R. Howard. Julie. R.

He didn't know where to go. Didn't know how long he walked. He just looked up and all of sudden found himself staring at Thunder Mountain. Blackened, crumbling, it was a husk of what it had once been. Of the small, strange home they'd built together. The home the Capitol had taken from him. Again.

The anger was sudden. A deep wave that rose up from beneath the pain and washed everything in red.

He didn't even see the trashcan, didn't realize he'd attacked it with a serious of savage, vicious kicks, until he choked, unable to breathe, and fell to his knees beside it. The crumbled metal bin, and the man. Side by side, broken. And alone.

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He'd lost count of the wounds. He was a mess, and he knew it. He'd lost track of the days, he was bleeding from almost everywhere and his shoulder was slowly seeping blood from where Aunamee had pierced it with a spear. The collarbone underneath was probably cracked. But he'd torn off his jacket and used it for bandaging - both that and the cape now gone, leaving only a torn and bloody shirt beneath. His ear was no longer bandaged. He chewed carefully on the last strip of cat he'd recieved from Wyatt - dried and hardened in the sun - as he made his way back to Thunder Mountain. He needed a friendly face, needed someone to take a look at his shoulder. He hoped Wyatt's ally wouldn't panic at the sight of him, the bloody pickaxe held in his off-hand, the sword arm sore and mostly useless after Aunamee had gotten his shoulder.

He was already thinking of a warm fire when he heard the attack and froze, listening. His hearing just wasn't good, these days, without his ear, but he swore it didn't sound like someone being attacked, more like someone just... attacking.

Cautiously, he raised the pickaxe, face grim as he headed in the direction of the noise. He knew he didn't have a lot left in him. Might as well die fighting --

But as he came around the corner and saw who it was, relief filled him utterly and the pickaxe lowered.

"Wyatt!"

It took a moment for Wyatt to recognize the sound of his own name. Another to call up the strength, to care, as he sat in the ash and dirt in the dying shadow of the hollow mountain.

His head lifted slowly and turned. His face was wet and he could taste salt. Had he cried? He couldn't remember the tears.

He didn't wipe at them, didn't try to hide them. He didn't have room left inside him for shame.

He blinked and stared.

Maximus couldn't help the smile as he walked towards Wyatt - but as he caught the look on his friends face the smile faded and disappeared, replaced by a concerned frown. He glanced around them, worried that they were not alone, but only silence and stillness greeted him as he approached.

Wyatt looked okay - no major wounds that he could see - but he'd never seen him this upset. And upset he was, obviously.

"What happened?" He asked as he got near enough to drop his voice.

Wyatt watched Maximus approach with a blank, vacant expression.

Some part of him knew he should be happy to see his friend. To know that someone, anyone, was still out there, safe and alive, but he just... couldn't.

"They're gone."

He blinked again, as if that said it all, and swallowed, his Adam's apple lurching, as he turned back to the mountain.

"Howard an' Julie an' R... They're all gone."

He didn't know any of them, of course, but he'd heard the canon shots about an hour past, and he could take a guess. He gestured at the sky.

"Your allies?" He asked, already knowing the answer but wanting the confirmation. He'd seen it before, of course, that moment where man, overlayed by the weight of grief, broke. He'd felt it. Nearly allowed himself to die from it. So he understood. That didn't mean he knew how to help Wyatt through it.

Not without maggots, at any rate.

"Kids," he added quietly, his voice thick.

It wasn't quite a correction, just an additional point. An important one.

Kids should have been laughing and playing and causing trouble. Not fighting and dying.

"My kids. I was supposed to keep 'em safe."

Maximus let out a long breath, glancing back at the mountain, considering, before looking at Wyatt. No. Going back to his old camp would not help. They would need to find a new one.

"They should never have been here at all," He said lowly, reaching out to Wyatt with his damaged arm, the pickaxe held loosely in the other. "Come, we should find shelter."

When Maximus touched him, that's Wyatt seemed to finally see him - finally recognized him. He turned, his blue eyes narrowed, staring, tracking slowly over him, taking in the blood, the way his shoulder was humped unnaturally, and the axe - obviously well used.

More suffering. Someone else he cared about in pain. And he hadn't noticed. Hadn't offered to help.

Wasn't sure he could anymore.

Shame, at last, burned hotly through him and his jaw tightened, the muscles bunching into a knot.

"I let them down, Max."

Maximus did not say what came to mind. That they were probably even now back safe and sound in the city, in warm beds, with warm food. He did not say it because he knew it meant nothing to a man's honour.

There was little he could say, so instead he only squeezed Wyatt's shoulder - just barely, just gently - and tried to ever so slightly pull him away.

Some part of him recognized that. Understood that they would have likely been returned to the Capitol and were waking up whole and safe... but that wasn't good enough.

They should have won. Should have been safe from every having to do this again. But they weren't, and they would. And he was to blame. If he'd been there....

He resisted the pull, staring up at Thunder Mountain just a moment longer, then gave in and let Maximus turn him away, falling into his silently.

He was silent as they walked, though he didn't move far from Wyatt's side, constantly on the lookout for a place they could camp. Finally he found a corner - behind a building, between two trees overlooking a small, dried up river bed, and led them there, motioning for Wyatt to sit as he started to pull some dead, dried branches together.

He sank to the dirt, a silent jumble of limbs, leaning against one of the tree trunks as if keeping himself upright was just too much effort once he was down again.

His eyes closed and for a moment, one painfully weak moment, he just wished it to be over. For Death to just come along and take him away from all of this at last, to finally let him rest.

But it didn't, of course. His damnable heart kept on beating, his lungs still breathing, his mind still heavy with the weight of his failure.

"I'm sorry."

He wasn't quite sure what exactly he was apologizing for, or even if it was meant for Max at all, but he said it anyway.

He had to.

He dropped a bunch of stones and sticks at Wyatt's feet and basically ignored Wyatt's apology. He knew it wasn't really for him.

"Start a fire," He said - a command, but the tone was quiet. He went back to collecting some more firewood as he let his mind wander. He could not leave Wyatt like this. But finding the words to bring a man from grief, long enough to find the will to continue...

He ruminated, turning them over in his head.

Wyatt's face twisted, frowning and wrinkling in a pain, as the debris clattered at his feet and a for a heartbeat it looked like he might refuse. Might just keep sitting there waiting to see if Death might change its mind....

But then he sucked in a deep breath, held it, and slowly let it out with a quick, jerking nod.

His fingers were trembling as he reached for the nearest stone, but he forced himself to start pushing them into a ring.

Maximus stayed silent, the gears working behind his eyes. Sometimes, he could be an orator. He had perfected his speeches before battles, could convince an entire army to go to war, to fight and to die. But this particular speech was more personal. And he had to have the right words for it.

So he didn't use any, at all, as he gathered the supplies, before coming back, setting them beside Wyatt's shaky stone ring, and slowly and silently began to help him build the fire.

Silence was familiar between them. Wyatt had lost count of the nights they'd sat together at the Speakeasy with nary more than a handful of words between them. It was an easy rhythm, comforting, like slipping into a warm bath after a long day.

But this wasn't the bar, this wasn't a night of friendly drinking, and as the little teepee of sticks began to take shape, his throat suddenly cleared and he spoke. Low, thick words.

"I had a woman." He continued to stack as he talked, as if the words hinged on his movement. As if he stopped and thought about them, they wouldn't come. "Her name was Dora and she was... so much better than I deserved, but she loved me anyway. I couldn't imagine my life without her." His mouth twisted again, and his Adam's apple lurched up and done on a painful swallow. "Before I was brought here, she was murdered. Shot, in her own bed."

His hands twitched and he tightened them on the wood, knuckles whitening as he struggled for control. "It's my job to keep folks safe, to protect 'em. And I couldn't even save her."

Edited (slight change in wording) 2013-05-08 13:50 (UTC)

Maximus listened quietly, not interrupting, his eyes on his hands as he helped to build the fire rather than on Wyatt's face. But he didn't need to look at Wyatt's face to know the pain he would find there.

He let the silence stretch for a long moment, before he began to speak in a low voice.

"Death is the only common unifier of men," Maximus said, slowly. Carefully. Deliberately. "My wife-- my son-- They were both taken from me. Beaten, Crucified and burned," (He did not say raped. Could not.) "On order of the son of the man to whom I had dedicated my entire life. I did not see my son grow up - I believed I was securing his future by slaying the enemies of my Emperor." He paused, if only to keep himself from choking. He had not spoken of this in depth since he had come here, and it was like cracking open an old wound to make it bleed fresh. "He gave me one last command, a mission, to restore the republic of Rome--" He did choke slightly, there, a bitter note to his words. "Before his son murdered him. Before he attempted to murder me. Before he did murder my family."

There was a long pause and his hands hovered slightly before setting down the next stick.

"I was meant to join them, in the afterlife. I promised I would join them soon." He did raise his eyes then, meeting Wyatt's, with a firmness and an assuredness that only a true believer could deliver. "But they will wait for me. As Dora is waiting for you. And we will meet that self same death, and we shall not shame them."

Edited 2013-05-08 14:03 (UTC)

It was the most Wyatt had ever heard Maximus say at any one time, and certainly more personal than they normally dared to tread.

He stared across the unlit fire and in that moment, as their gazes met and held - his own pain reflecting back at him from Max's face - he wanted to believe. He wanted to trust as Max did, so wholly, so fully, in the unseen, in the sweet promise of what waited for them on the other side.

But he'd been seen too many arenas, had done so much... would the bloodstains ever wash clean? Could he ever really be worthy of that shining place where his Dora waited?

"I've been here a long time, Max. I'm not sure there's any such place waiting for me."

"None outrun death," He paused, frowned, and his voice dropped slightly lower. "Not even the Capitol. Here, or the next arena, or the next, or a hundred from now, it will come to an end. And they will wait. No matter how long it takes, they will wait."

"It ain't dyin' that I'm afraid of." It was a quiet confession, Wyatt's eyes searching Max's face as he made it. "Or that she won't be there. I'm afraid I won't be worthy of her."

Edited 2013-05-10 15:50 (UTC)

"She will be there." Maximus said, as solidly as he'd said his previous speech. "Even if now, if you stumbled and fell and murdered, and you awoke from your death in Tartarus rather than Elysium, you would still see her again. You would be given the load made for you, you would do your penance, and then you would see her. No matter what sin on your shoulders." He paused, gathering his thoughts. It was a speech he'd made before, to frightened soldiers, to weary men. To men who did not know if what they did was good or right. But Maximus knew Justice and knew that Wyatt knew it too.

He offered a reassuring smile, a true one. "You will see her. As I will see my family. Even if this place is Tartarus and every battle here a penance."

Edited (woops that if was important) 2013-05-14 13:57 (UTC)

Wyatt stared at him, a long moment of uncertain silence stretching between them. Then, surprisingly, his eyebrows lifted, his brow wrinkling, a low chuckle rumbling up from somewhere deep inside him a wry smile cracked his mouth.

"Well, that ain't quite what I was taught to believe, but iffen my vote counts for anything, that sounds a right bit nicer."

The smile had almost faded as the silence lingered on, but it quickly returned as Wyatt chuckled.

"Men have many different beliefs," Maximus admitted with a nod, "Though most of the men I've met believe we meet with those we love after we die. It would be a cruel fate, otherwise."

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