thearena | (no subject)

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Who| Ian and open
What| Hanging about in the rain
Where| Somewhere in the vicinity of the caves
When| Week 2
Warnings/Notes| Dehydration and possible mention of various bodily functions. Also death (in the thread with Cindy).

Ian would have happily stayed hiding in the caves until he died. But he'd underestimated just how bad not eating or drinking anything would make him feel. Despite eating a lot before the arena, and being on the plump side when he entered it, he was already horribly thin. The skin hung around his bones, with no moisture in it to keep it supple.

He'd heard the rain and although he wanted to die, not drink it, listening to it was driving him mad. So he wandered out, shivering in the cold air, with nothing to keep him warm beyond the clothes he'd entered the arena in. But he welcomed the rain, feeling the moisture on his body and he kept walking, although it was a slow, stumbling walk. By the time he thought to look where he was, he was lost, unable to remember which way he'd come through the jungle.

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Ian was still with Blaine, they had made a good team so far. But today he had come scouting, just a little to see if he could find anything outside of the jungle. The caves looked interesting, and would provide shelter against the constant rain. He noted them as places to tell Blaine about when he got back to their agreed meeting place.

He saw a figure and retreated a little, knife in hand. Whichever sponsor had sent him that, he was glad for. Whatever he might think of sponsors in general.

He recognised the figure though, and was shocked to see how ill they looked. "Ian?" He moved to his side, pulling out a bottle of water (another gift). "Here."

Ian shook his head, then regretted it, as it didn't help his headache. "No, thank you," he said, his voice hoarse. He coughed, his throat dry. He longed to take the water, but he knew it would just draw his death out.

"Go on." He held it out again, "I've got plenty and you look like you could use it?" Water food and bed rest to be honest, but beggers couldn't be choosers as they said.

He smiled a little. "Keep it, you might need it." Even if he had wanted it he wouldn't have taken water from a teenager when anything you got from the cornucopia or sponsors was precious.

"You need it more." He sounds annoyed, seriously why did this place insist on pulling in such self sacrificial heroes. If they wanted decent death games they should have pulled in selfish people who would fight tooth and claw to survive.

"No, I'm fine." He didn't feel it and was sure he didn't look it either, but wasn't sure how else to convince Ian not to give his precious water away. "I'll be fine, I'll just die."

"Are you fucking listening to yourself?" Ian was angry now, "You'll just die, like it's no fucking big deal. We don't always come back you know." His voice caught on that but he powered on, he was not thinking about Mickey.

"Death isn't being fucking fine, dead is dead and what if they decide you just weren't fucking amusing enough to bring back huh?"

He shrugged. "Then at least I won't have killed anyone."

He just stares at him for a long moment. "Are you planning on being a stubborn ass about this?"

"Yes," he said with a straight face and then couldn't help but laugh. Although it turned into a cough after a moment.

There was an easy and simple reason why Cindy was heading north, after dealing with the after-math of the cornucopia, and trying to figure out where the best place to go would actually be. She had plenty of supplies, so it was logical for her to find somewhere to hang out, and hope everyone died before her. Which, in her opinion, could happen at any time, so the other advantage would be to make sure no one found the supplies when she was gone.

But honestly the reason that she headed north, was because she'd gone west in the last arena, and north was next on the list, if the compass was a clock. Cindy knew that other people were going to be heading in the same direction (there were so many people, it was staggering, really), so she had an eye out, protecting her ribs as she went.

Something that was thrown to the side when she saw someone she knew who wouldn't attack her. Unfortunately, it looked like he was dying. Couldn't really win with this one, huh.

"Ian?" Cindy called out as she came over a small hill, holding a hand to her stomach as she tried to run faster and not slip from the rain. "Ian!"

Ian didn't laugh, instead he swore again. "Fine," His hands clenched into fists, "See if I fucking care and don't say I never tried to help you."

Ian raised an eyebrow at him. "I won't," he promised, taking Ian's comment as if he was serious. He turned away, carrying on walking (slowly) and leaving Ian to sulk, if that's what he wanted.

Ian spun on hearing his name, but turned too quickly and ended up sitting down on the ground, blinking away the dizziness. He smiled when he saw who it was though. "Cindy," he said, although it came out as a whisper.

"Fucking idiot." Ian growled after him, angry that he was refusing help and was just going to go curl up and die. He turned back and marched back towards the jungle shaking his head angrily.

Beck couldn't help but notice the User stumbling along in the jungle. It wasn't like he wasn't on guard; he come to the point where he always had his bow drawn, and grew nervous when he didn't have it in hand. But at the same time, he didn't want to go and attack people out of nowhere. Especially when it came to a User just like this guy looked like right now.

There was something very off about the way he walked. He was stumbling, Beck realized. Was he hurt? Tired?

He slowly approached the figure, resting his bow for a moment or two. "You okay?"

"Great, thanks," Ian said hoarsely. He didn't care too much about being attacked, so he said it sarcastically, not bothering to try and act as if he was okay and capable of fighting back. He did eye the bow warily, though.

Beck was going to ignore the sarcasm there.

He let the bow rest on his back, moving slowly towards the User. Things were always so tense in the Arena (understandably so), and he didn't want to seem like he was out to get this guy's blood. Especially when he was in a condition like that. "Do you need anything? I don't want to hurt you."

"I'm glad to hear that." He wasn't sure it mattered that much, but he didn't particularly want to be killed. It would be embarrassing. "But there's nothing you can do, thank you." He coughed and winced as it made his dry throat drier.

Beck gave the guy a sad look. It sounded like he completely gave up on himself. Letting him go was probably the smart thing to do in regards to the Arena, but that wasn't fair. Or, at least, that's how he saw things.

He reached into his bag, and pulled out his thermos. "There's still some water in here. I didn't really drink any of it yet." Beck offered it to the guy, with a small little smile on his face.

He shook his head and stumbled a little as the motion made him dizzy for a second. "No, thanks. You keep it. You don't know when you might need it."

"I have plenty of it." Beck offered the canteen to the User again. "Seriously. If I ever need more, all I have to do is find a creek. I'll be fine."

"You can't be sure of that." But Ian kept his eyes on the canteen, sorely tempted in his thirst. "There might not be a creek nearby. Or you might be attacked before you found it."

"I'll be fine." Beck said, taking the canteen and placing it in the other's hand. "I've gone a little longer than I should with no water. There's probably other ways to get water around here."

He smiled, "Take a sip. Please."

His hand shook as he looked at the canteen. He desperately wanted a drink, but knew if he didn't have one it would be better all round. And yet, in this place where everyone was out to kill each other, here was someone helping him survive. So he took a sip.

It was hard not to just drain the whole thing, but aside from not wanting to deprive the other man of the rest of his water, he thought it might make him sick. He swallowed his mouthful, running his tongue over his lips.

Then he held the canteen out for the other man to take back. "Thank you."

Beck didn't really know why drinking water quickly made Users sick, but he was happy that this guy managed to take a sip, at least. It was just a little sip, but it was a lot better than letting him go off without taking any at all.

So he smiled. That was progress, at least!

"Do you need anything else?"

"No, thank you." Ian smiled back, trying to look like someone who was capable of surviving without needing anything, rather than someone who was dying of dehydration. It was probably just as well there weren't any mirrors round here, because he didn't know what he looked like.

Beck gave the User a smile, and tucked his canteen away. He did his good deed (maybe he should do a little more...?), now maybe it was time for him to leave. Not that Beck wanted to. But at the same time, it was all for yourself, and he couldn't get tucked into this kind of stuff.

It was hard to get. But that's how it had to be, right?

"Take care, okay?" Beck gave him a smile, before backing away.

"You too." Ian smiled back before taking another path.

She pressed the hand to her stomach tighter, before she finally made it up the hill and over to him. The lack of good food and water combined with the actual injury, and the paleness of her face was both from the pain, and the fear.

No, she'd just found him. He couldn't die on her, not now. Not when she was there, crouching down next to him.

"Hey. Hey, come on, I'm here now, it's going to be okay. What happened?" He has to be okay. He better be okay.

"Nothing," he croaked. He reached out with a hand that was bonier than usual to take her hand. His grip on hers was light.

"I'm playing the game." It just wasn't very pleasant that was all. "I'll be better soon."

He was so fragile. She'd never thought of him as fragile, not really. But maybe it was with the fact that he looked like he should have been dead a long time ago. And once again, there was nothing she could do.

She hated that feeling. "I can see you're playing the game." She swallowed hard, trying not to hold on too tightly. Trying being the key word.

"You will. You will be better soon. Let's get out of here, we can hole up somewhere. Wait things out for a few hours."

"All right." He smiled at her, glad she believed him. He didn't feel like he could carry on like this for a few hours, but he said, "I can wait."

He tried to stand, but his muscles were weak. He managed to get on one knee, but then his legs shook. He still had his pride, so he wasn't going to ask for help and instead pulled on Cindy's hand for leverage. Since he weighed far less than usual, he wasn't in any danger of pulling her down and she would end up needing to pull him up.

"You better wait." Cindy went for a joking tone, but it came out a little too tight to be anything like a joke. Still, she smiled, and held tight, helping him up. Always have to keep that pride in check, and it doesn't hurt that despite her weakened condition, some strength from the stories was still there.

Once he's up, she puts her arm around him. It's a little bit of a struggle, keeping the other pressed to her stomach and keeping him up. She'd manage.

"We're close to some kind of cave, it's maybe ten minutes of walking. Fifteen if we take it super slow. We'll take it slow. We can exchange war stories, it'll make the time pass faster."

"All right." It came out as a very quiet croak. He tried not to put too much weight on Cindy and put one foot in front of another, but it seemed to involve a lot more effort than usual.

"You tell a story first." He didn't think the energy to manage speaking and walking. As it was, as they went along he got heavier as he put more of his weight on Cindy, and his steps got slower, his legs shaking as the effort wore him out.

One foot in front of the other. That's all they could do for right now, and Cindy knew that they weren't going to make it. They weren't. He definitely wasn't, but she could.

She wasn't even paying attention to the rest of the world; it was just them two right now. "Me first. Okay. Well, back in '87, I was in Switzerland. And it was freezing. I'm talking forty below cold, and I was outrunning these two guys down the slopes. I was on a snowmobile, and they were too, two of them on one, and me on the other." One step, two steps, and he was getting heavy. "And they were yelling at me in Russian, which I've never been great at, so I couldn't really understand them."

Cindy was good at telling stories, talking while they steadily came to a halt. "So I'm getting away, and they've got these machine guns, right? And they're loud. So loud, and I feel this rumbling and--" They sink to the ground. "Shit."

"Cold," Ian whispered, lying on the ground. Although whether he was talking about himself or her story was hard to tell. He managed to reach a hand up to Cindy's cheek, together with a fond look.

But then his hand dropped and his eyes closed. He wasn't dead yet, but it wouldn't be long. In the meantime he wouldn't wake up or be able to swallow any water - although it was too late for that to do any good.

There wasn't anything she could, and Cindy had to accept that. She did accept it. All she could do was make him comfortable, but she couldn't even do that, here. It was cold, drizzling, and all she could do was sit there.

"Don't worry." She smiled, still feeling his hand on her cheek. She moved his head to her lap, and she looked down.

"Don't worry." She repeated, leaning down and pressing a kiss to his forehead. "It's going to be warm soon."

She didn't care if they(she) could be attacked right now. She'd wait till he was gone, and then she would go.

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If anything needs to be changed, let me know!

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Re: If anything needs to be changed, let me know!

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back and good to go!

Re: back and good to go!

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Aaaaaaand finish?