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

[the_marshal]

Wyatt's mouth twisted, an uncertain frown as he looked from the dejected R to the little cave where Max slept, torn between the two halves of himself.

He didn't believe R to be willfully malicious. The boy tried, he'd had seen it... but he was dangerous, and Wyatt hadn't forgotten what had happened last arena. How things had ended for Howard, how R had looked at him when he'd found out the about Aunamee - how he hadn't believed him, and he couldn't say he'd forgiven the boy for it.

Couldn't say he wholly trusted him anymore.

So he let R sit in the rain and the mud, wary of bringing him any closer to camp. He might not have seemed particularly hungry just then, but that could - would - change, and who knew, maybe he'd already met up with Aunamee again....

"Ya know Aunamee's back?" he asked, staring down at R. "Howard an' Max have both seen him."

[shambler]

Well, that fixed the problem bringing up the man. R shifted to stare up at Wyatt for a long moment. The way Wyatt talked, he made it sound like Howard was alive - good! - and Max was...

Maximus was here in the Arena too? Didn't...he win the last one? That should've given him a pass from the whole murdering Tributes thing, if R understood how the Hunger Games worked correctly. R's eyebrows pinched together as he tried to frown, forgetting for a moment he didn't have lips to frown with in the first place. Gazing up at Wyatt looming over him, R slowly bobbed his head in a nod and tried to keep it neutral. Yeah, he knew. He'd nearly broken in his neck falling into Aunamee's hidey-hole the first week.

Unsure of what to say, R spread his hands helplessly, then gave a shrug before he thought it through and realized it might look like he didn't care. That he was blowing off the warnings. It's not that. It's - it's complicated. He'd never met anyone like Aunamee before. His fellow Dead weren't malicious when they were out murdering and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't come up with a good enough reason to explain why Aunamee would do the horrible things everyone said he did.

Anyway, he didn't eat him this time, if that was what Wyatt was gearing up to ask next.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt's eyes narrowed, watching R bob and shrug, his lips thinned, pressing together as he studied the boy's pale, wet face. He was whiter than usual, with his hair dark and slicked from the rain, like Death leering back at him.

"Howard's terrified," he said, a cold statement of fact. If R was still confused, was still determined to hitch himself to Aunamee, the boy wouldn't be able to say Wyatt hadn't warned him. "An' he's threatened me."

His fingers twitched, curled in against his palms.

"He might be a friend'a yers, but I ain't gonna let him hurt me an' mine."

[shambler]

I'm not even sure we're friends, R sighed.

"Ggh." Who's he kidding? Wyatt wasn't a mind-reader. R's eyes locked onto Wyatt's face, taking in the way his expression was closed off and guarded because he was a good friend to Howard and naturally he'd be worried. After a moment, R dropped his eyes. In a perfect world, Howard wouldn't have to be jumping at his shadow convinced men like Aunamee would be waiting for him. Wyatt shouldn't be looking at him wondering who's side he'd take.

R caught himself wondering why Wyatt didn't just kill Aunamee all over again. Replay that Cornucopia in the desert. He didn't seem the kind of guy to take threats lightly.

R tried again. "Aagn - " was about all he could force out, nowhere close to explaining that he'd stop Aunamee from hurting them if he had a choice, too. Time to try another tactic. He pointed at Wyatt, then back the way he (thought) he'd seen the other Tribute.

[the_marshal]

The blue eyes flicked from R's face to his outstretched hand and then beyond to the forest. Silently he weighed what R could be trying to tell him.

Was it really what he thought it was? Did R understand what it would mean?

He looked back, holding the strange white gaze with his own.

(What did it look like to R, through those eyes?)

"Ya know what'll happen if I find him."

[shambler]

He knew all right, he'd been more than happy to feed on the aftermath like a vulture. R wondered if it would've mattered if he'd been able to see Aunamee's face then. From what he could feel with his fingers, there hadn't been much of a face left after Wyatt finished with him.

R stared and then after a moment he nodded slowly. The bits of flesh jiggled with the movement, water tripping down what was left of his top teeth to splatter to his lap.

You'll do it again.

He let out another rattling breath escape out the new cavity in his face. After a moment, he reached down and patted the soggy root next to him, inviting Wyatt to sit.

[the_marshal]

A nod. Confirmation, of whatever R was picturing. Of the memory that had been so close ever since he'd told Max his intentions.

But then he breathed, sighed through his nose, and moved to take the seat next to the boy, reaching up to touch his shoulder, squeezing the strange, soft flesh gently.

He understood, better than most, that the right thing wasn't always the easiest.

"Thank ya, son," he said, that slow, honest drawl. "How ya found out 'bout all this wasn't the best'a ways it coulda happened, an' I'm sorry for that... but I appreciate ya tryin' in-spite of that."

[shambler]

He told himself it was a good sign that Wyatt sat down instead of turning his back and walking away. Little baby steps. Sure, those baby steps would be a hell of a lot easier if he could talk, but R was starting to feel up about this whole thing.

It was just...Aunamee. R wished he could put his foot down but he couldn't and he couldn't even tell if it was just a character defect he'd always had or if it was a zombie's natural inability to commit. He turned, shifting his body slowly to face Wyatt as he sat down next to him, wet bark and all. Thanks, huh? R doesn't feel like he deserves that thanks. He can't find it in him to really, truly hate Aunamee and there's still a part of him that's horrified he'd eaten his still-warm corpse last Arena. He wondered if a real friend, one with a heartbeat, would feel differently.

R peered at Wyatt through the gloom, a flicker of orange against the trees announcing dawn was closing in.

Leaning over, R touched the man's chest and brushed his fingers against that heart he knew beat steadily away underneath the grimy shirt. He let his fingers sit there, staring the man in the eyes. He (thought) he got why Wyatt had such a hardline about Aunamee. But what would happen if he kept up the killing? An eye for an eye?

[the_marshal]

His heart thumped against his ribs. His skin prickled, the back of his neck tingling as R's fingers rested on his chest.

He might have blamed the nature of what R was, the risk involved with getting so close. The grisly picture the boy's face painted, so broken and bloody, but it was the stare that weighted him. Frank and unblinking.

He could almost hear the question in his head. The accusation. The concern.

Thickly, he swallowed, Adam's Apple lurching in his throat.

"I don't like it, R. Life an' death, it ain't a game. It's a decision that shouldn't be left up to any one man... but here, in this place..." He glanced away, at the dark alien trees, the pool of light creeping closer across the wet earth. "I can't see much other choice. Not when it comes down to him er them."

He turned back, blue eyes meeting R's pale ones again. A heavy stare. Decided.

"We all got er lines, an' that's mine. Wrong er right, I ain't gonna risk their lives, for his."

[shambler]

Wyatt's blink rate increased - not a lot, but enough that R could see he hadn't made it a daily habit to be touched by corpses. He dropped his hand away from the warmth his heart, still studying Wyatt intently.

Here, in this place. R remembered what happened with Hyperion in Disneyland, how he'd felt something that had jolted through his corpse and realize he wanted more than anything to protect Howard and Julie. He hadn't been able to back then. R listened to that familiar drawl in Wyatt's voice, the twang on vowels that he'd missed more than he thought he would.

R thought he understood now. Replace Hyperion with Aunamee and Wyatt had to make those tough choices he couldn't just blame on hunger, like R could and did. e knew he had to...to commit. Draw that line in the stand instead of staring down at it, swaying uselessly. R slowly nodded. He thought he could get now where he was coming from.

"Ghk," R didn't have a hope of getting anything coherent out, but it was at least worth the effort. He reached out, touched Wyatt's hand resting on the root for a second, and then withdrew it. He turned to watch as the sun began to peek out, the gray of the morning starting to bleed into a gentle orange glow. It was almost pretty, actually.

[the_marshal]

In response, that hand lifted and rested again on R's shoulder, fabric squishing wetly beneath his palm. It was almost funny, the one person that could understand where he was coming from - even if he didn't agree with it - and it he wasn't even really a person.

Or maybe it was that R was more human than most, eating folks aside.

"I don't think yer a bad kid, R. In fact, I believe yer a, truly, decent young man. ...I apologize, for judgin' ya so harshly." Smiling gently, he clapped the boy's shoulder, then turned to watch the sunrise with him.