Justice is the one thing you should always find.

[the_marshal]

WHO| Wyatt, Maximus, and OTA
WHAT| Surviving in general, hunting down Aunamee in particular.
WHERE| Pretty much anywhere except the Compound.
WHEN| Tail end of Week 1, and Week 2
Warnings/Notes| They're trying to find Aunamee in order to kill him, so, yeah, there's that. Also, if you'd like one over the other, or them both, feel free to specify in Subject Line.



Max called it hunting. Wyatt's conscience prickled a bit at that, at first - he'd have preferred tracking - but he didn't quibble over it, and before too awful long, even the little whisper in his head fell quiet. There was no denying what they were planning on doing, and while they might be skipping a few steps there in the middle, he believed the result would have been the same even if this was a place for fair trials.

(And, truth be told, having already done it the once, it was easier to swallow the second time around.)

It needed to be done, and if the Capitol wouldn't, they would.

They traveled during the day. Max never complained, but the Roman was moving along at a noticeably slower clip. Wyatt never mentioned it, but he found excuses - as often as he dared - to pause, to give him a chance to rest and recuperate. The rain, heavy and hot and generally unpleasant, actually helped a fair bit in that respect. Deaf to all but the driving storm, all but blind, they had no choice, but to take refuge where they found it and wait out the downpour.

At night, they camped, taking turns in the bag, one watching over the other's back when the other slept. Waiting out the strange, alien calls of the dark jungle, for the sun to return.

Comments

[wantwhatiwant]

Ian and Blaine were also traveling through the storm, they had fallen silent some time before. Or at least Ian had. If Blaine had spoken then the words had been robbed by the wind and Ian hadn't heard them.

Ian spotted somewhere they could shelter and pointed at it, hoping Blaine would understand or be able to see at all. He stumbled towards it, wiping away water from his eyes and pushing his hair back from where it was plastered to his forehead.

He blinked however when he saw that the place he had spotted was already occupied, and he held his knife in front of him, putting up a hand to warn Blaine.

[mediumdrip]

Blaine was pretty good at being quiet. He also remembered to give a lonely stare into to distance any time they paused. All to make sure that the audience could infer that even though he was working with and traveling with Ian, his mind never really left his worry about Kurt. He wasn't too worried about being too dramatic, he'd learned by now that the people in the Capital loved drama.

He followed Ian's orders well enough, even if they were just hand signals. He didn't think he'd use the poison darts effectively in the rain, but he still had to appear like he'd give a good fight.

The Capital loved drama, he remembered, and if he knew who was already in the cave he'd be able to know that there was even more of it there.

After all, he was about to see the man who had killed him the last Arena.

[the_marshal]

Back to the opening of their makeshift camp, Wyatt tugged at his sodden shirt, bunching the fabric in his hands and wringing it hard. He didn't worry about catching cold, as warm as it was, but he did worry about rot and trench foot.

"The things I'd do for a dry pair of socks..." he muttered lowly to Max, reaching for his boots next, pulling on the laces and upending one, shaking out the wet that had puddled inside.

[gluteus]

Maximus chuckled, all noise from outside their shelter drowned out by the pouring rain, pounding down on every surface with enough intensity to make the forest hum with vibration.

"The things I'd do for a leg to make wet," He replied cheekily back.

He'd grabbed some wood when the rain had started - stuffed it into his waterproof back. It was wet, but it wasn't drenched like everything else, so he was currently trying to light a small fire with it. There wasn't enough to last the night of course - or even more than an hour - but it would be enough to warm them up and perhaps dry Wyatt's socks.

[wantwhatiwant]

Ian was stuck between retreating, or trying to pass the cave. There might be another, an empty one where they could shelter from the storm. Going back into the jungle was probably just going to result in them getting split up, and probably hurt.

So he continued, trying to stick to the shadows and go undetected by whoever was in the cave, he couldn't see properly and though he heard voices he couldn't make them out over the thundering rain.

[mediumdrip]

"What?" Blaine asked, thinking that only Ian could hear him over the rain. "That voice... He won last time. Why is he here?" He frowned, uncertain. He wasn't entirely aware that Victors were in this Arena, he hadn't run into any and the opening has been so hectic for him he hadn't really noticed.

"The Marshal though... He's a good guy. He won't... He won't let the other one hurt us. I don't think." Still, there was real fear in his face and his eyes. He hadn't forgotten what it was like to die by Maximus's hand.

The tail end of his sentence was caught up in a moment where the rain had quieted a bit. It was still storming, but it seemed like there was a radius around them that muted just a bit. It was probably the Gamemakers, or just Blaine's bad luck.

[the_marshal]

Squeezing out his socks with one hand, Wyatt was grinning and leaning toward the curtain of water hanging over the opening to their little cave, other hand cupped to catch the rain, ready to offer to cure Max's ails for him--

--when he caught a sound above the rain and wind.

He stilled instantly, grin fading as he turned to peer through the water.

"...Ya hear that?"

[gluteus]

Maximus had already frozen absolutely still, and he nodded, once, his face hard. He couldn't make out the words over the pounding of the rain, but he could hear the voice.

He carefully and quietly pulled out his knife, before catching Wyatt's eye and motioning with his head outside.

[wantwhatiwant]

Ian strained his ears, the victor. Maximus or something... Ian hadn't actually met him so wasn't sure if it was his voice. The second one though... it could be Wyatt.

"Yeah..." He winced as the rain quietened down at the worst moment, and turned to get closer to Blaine. If this did turn violent it was best to be together, then split up.

Also Blaine looked scared, and that wasn't good. Hadn't Maximus been the one to kill him... Ian would have thought the only decent thing about being killed by a Victor was that you never had to face them in the arena again.

Apparently that had got boring. "Wyatt? It's Ian... and Blaine..." Wyatt he knew at least, and Blaine was right, he wouldn't attack on sight. Unless Ian had completely misread him.

[shambler]

He misses talking. Somehow of all the things that could happen to him - his arm blown away by shotgun, for example - he'd never pictured losing half his face before. It doesn't hurt. But it aches in a wordless way he can't pin even if he could talk, aware of the phantom feeling of a lower jaw that was used to clenching and moving and being there. Reminding him he still had the body of a human even if the rest of him was rotted. One of the links left, like having all his arms and legs attached and a tongue that somehow, miraculously, remembered how to string words together.

Now even that's gone.

And...of course it rains. Of course.

R's still blundering away in the dark with his hair plastered tight to his skull. The rain lets up enough that he can sorta-kinda see where he's going without breaking his neck while he's at it. A ratty sleeping bag drags along the jungle floor covered in mud and God knows what, tattered beyond recognition. He'd planned to give it to Julie or Howard or someone, once upon a time. Now R's just holding onto it so he has something to do with his hands.

The biggest tip-off Wyatt has an intruder is the fact that all those strange animals hooting and chirping? They've gone quiet, that exact level of too-quiet when they think there might be a predator snooping around.

[the_marshal]

The rain had let up enough for Wyatt to hear the jungle again - the low hum of buzzing insects, the call of high-sitting birds back and forth to one another - until suddenly, it was gone again. Even the insects disappeared, leaving nothing but the plop of water against the broad green leaves, the little splash of puddles, and the quiet whisper of Max as he slept.

Stiffening, Wyatt straightened up out his easy slouch, eyes narrowing and head tilting as he listened. A hand reached for his knife, tucking the handle against his palm, as he shifted, pushing up into a crouch, weight balanced on the balls of his feet.

[shambler]

A shadow passed between the trees only a few yards away. The gait was uneven, staggering as if wounded or lost or maybe both, something dragging along the ground. A can bumped against a root. A foot scuffed into a rock, squishing against mud. The silhouette was distinctively male, tall. Something wasn't quite right about the shape of its face. Whoever they were, they didn't seem to realize Wyatt and Maximus were there and for a few minutes it might even look like Wyatt could let the Tribute pass them by.

R paused in his wandering. You know what, he was tired of shuffling forward mindlessly. He was sick and tired of doing the zombie thing because it was instinctive. R decided to be different: he changed directions, his shadow lurching now in a route that would bring him dangerously close to the camp he hadn't yet sniffed out.

[the_marshal]

He might have woken Max, but as the tribute drifted closer, he decided against it and shifted closer to the opening of their makeshift shelter. Waking Max might alert the stranger to their presence, the stirring, any whispered explanation might give away the element of surprise they still seemed to have.

Silent, he waited, listening as the rhythmic step and drag moved closer, and closer. The hair on the back of his neck lifted, but he held firm, another step, another... then he was suddenly reaching out, grabbing at cloth, ready to yank the other tribute off their feet.

[shambler]

As far as R had been concerned, he was the only one stumbling around this particular chunk of jungle. The hand grabbing him by the back of his shirt begged to differ.

R was sent staggering clumsily back toward Wyatt, dropping the sleeping bag with supplies in the mud as he tried to turn around. He didn't struggle so much as awkwardly flail with stiff arms. A weird sound gurgled out the ruins of his face as he instinctively tried to groan.

Was it Perry? It was totally Perry coming back to finish the job, he just knew it. Who wouldn't be pissed about being eaten by a corpse? R swung toward Wyatt, a cold hand brushing against what he assumed was the other Tribute, self-defense the last thing on his mind.

Huh. He felt...awfully bristly for Perry...?

[the_marshal]

Wyatt knew, almost instantly, who he'd grabbed a handful of. R stumbled back and the scent hit him, the sickly sweet rot, like meat left under the sun. Beneath his fingers, under the thin shirt, he could feel the flesh, strange and soft, more give and movement than there should have been.

(In the desert it hadn't been so bad. But here in the warm and the wet....)

Then the fingers, so cold, pushing against his cheek, grazing across his mouth.

His head jerked back, bile rising up in his throat, and the knife - rising toward R's throat - swung away again as he staggered back.

"R?" He coughed, voice thick as he swallowed back his gorge. "What're ya doin' here?"

[shambler]

Oh shit, Wyatt! R knew on some level he'd be wandering around the jungle too, surviving like last time, but he hadn't expected to shuffle into him here.

In his mind, R opened his mouth and said "I'm looking for my friends (are we still friends?) and by the way, guess who I ran into?" The reality was he didn't even have a full mouth to work with as he stared dumbly at Wyatt. He thought he made a sound, a croak, maybe a little gurgle in there, but none of it sounded close to words. Dammit.

He'd never felt more trapped in his body until right now. At least before he'd had that dim hope that if he could talk, he could eventually figure out the rest.

"Gggkl," R managed to get that much out, miserable. Even in the dark and the dawn only minutes away he'd spotted that quick spasm backward from Wyatt. The Living didn't seem like they were fans of his touch. It wasn't like he could blame Wyatt for having an instinctive reaction to it. He was tolerant, but even that wasn't limitless.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt's question actually had more to do with what R thinking he was doing sneaking around in the dark, in the rain, alone. It was a good way to get himself killed... as Wyatt had nearly seen done for him.

But as he looked back, rubbing the lingering tickle of R's cold, dead fingers from his mustache, he realized abruptly why R hadn't announced himself.

Hard to explain much of anything when someone'd run off with your jawbone.

He stared, blinking, the moment silent but before the drizzle of the rain.

"...Ya... hurt, son?"

Belated, he figured that was probably a rather silly thing to ask, given the circumstances.

Vines

[gluteus]

They'd been making a good pace but there was no sign of Aunamee. Not yet. Not surprising, given how large the arena was - a single man could easily get lost within it for days, if not weeks. At least until the Capitol thought it was more interesting to force them together.

But for now, all Wyatt and Maximus could do was soldier on. Maximus was doing the best he could but even he noticed that they were taking way more breaks than usual. He didn't mention them - never thanked Wyatt outloud, as he didn't want to embarrass him, but whenever they stopped he would give a small shoulder squeeze or a little more of the rations. As silent a thank you as he could manage.

This time, though, as they stopped and quietly ate the last of the potato, Maximus was completely unaware of the tendril of vine slowly creeping around his prosthetic leg...

[the_marshal]

It might have been strange, to anyone on the outside looking in, how much of their relationship was made up of silence, but to Wyatt it felt right. A natural sort of companionship that didn't require words.

Max needed, and so Wyatt gave, and vice versa.

As easy as breathing and requiring about as much thought as the beating of his heart. And just as good, just as sustaining for his spirit when the weight of the arena pressed down on him.

The sticky heat, the dull edge of hunger, the vicious biting insects....

Jerking beside Max, he slapped at the sharp bite on his leg, and hummed in surprise around his mouthful of dry potato when his fingers grazed - not just the flesh of his own leg and the metal of Max's so close - but leafy brush.

"Tryin' to blend in, Max?" he chuckled, swallowing down his mouthful with some effort, teasing there in the moment before he realized there was any reason to be worried. Before he tried to pull on the vine and the thing resisted, tightening instead of giving.

[gluteus]

"Hmm?" He asked, not really understanding until he looked down to see what Wyatt was staring at. He frowned, and pulled his leg gently, but that only caused the vine to wrap tightly around it and wrench it backwards from under him - causing him to stagger and fall with a surprised cry.

[the_marshal]

"Max!"

Man-eating plants. Of course. Of course. How could the Gamemakers resist those here in their nightmare jungle.

Food forgotten, the rest of his potato was dumped in the dirt as Wyatt lunged forward, reaching for Max with one hand, grasping automatically at the man's arm as vine dragged at him and more green rustling tendrils - like snakes - dropped from the tree they'd sheltered under to join in the fray.

The other hand dug for his boot, yanking his knife free.

[gluteus]

"I'm alright!" He snapped out, though he was now on the ground and both of his legs were entangled. He wrenched himself around, grabbing for the knife in his pocket but it fell and skittered across the ground, out of reach.

He swore, and twisted himself around to reach for it, just as a vine snagged his arm and pulled it up above him.

[the_marshal]

No. Hell no.

As with so many things that came with Max, Wyatt didn't even think about it. Knife free, he plunged in after the Roman, determined, that he was not about to loose him to a damned demon plant.

He pulled on Max's tangled arm, fighting to bring it back down, and slashing at with his blade as soon as it was in reach. Ducking as it retaliated, slapping at his shoulders, trying to coil around his head and neck.

[gluteus]

Wyatt's knife flashed right past his flesh but cut only vine, and he managed to wrench his arm away and finally grab the knife of his own. He couldn't reach the vines that were attacking Wyatt from where he lay on his back, but he could reach the ones around his legs.

He lashed out viciously with a roar as the vines twisted and increased their assault.

[the_marshal]

He helped, as much as he could, hands full of green as he cut with Max, trying to free the man... but then he himself was too tangled, the veins yanking him away, dragging him down to the dirt. Twisting and cursing, he struggled, hacking with his knife as he was tugged across the ground.

Desperately he reached out, scrabbling at the dirt, at the thick root, anything he could grab a hold of, anything to give him leverage against the vines and give him a chance to get free.