thearena | [OPEN] The night won't compensate the blind

Entry tags:

[OPEN] The night won't compensate the blind

Who | Sigma Klim, Eponine Thenardier, and You!
What | Sigma and Eponine pass the time in their shelter, and later Sigma's last stand in the Arena.
When | Week 2-3
Where | In the jungle.
Warnings | Illness, drinking with a minor, death and mentions of gore in Homura's thread.

The whole of the week, Sigma had been drifting in and out of consciousness. While Eponine slowly recovered from the last of her flu and the wound on her leg, the Doctor was only growing progressively worse, as though her pain could seep into him. His whole chest ached when he took a breath and it was as though his lungs had been grated apart, filled with blood, flesh, the water from the air that suffocated him in every humid breath. Even in his sleep he coughed rattlingly.

But the girl's presence next to him kept him grounded, kept him from giving up in his battle against his own body. At the moment he laid near the entrance to their root alcove, conscious enough to watch the opening carefully, if in a daze. If anyone were to spot them he would leap on them and tear them apart like any badger or weasel, illness or no. If he had been doing this duty for minutes or days, he could not tell; any duration of consciousness slipped away from him without bias.

Comforted that there had not been an unexpected guest in some time, he turned to their stash of supplies hungrily. He wheezed with every breath, for his throat felt as though it were burning, and he could no longer endure going without water periodically.

"Eponine? Shall we eat and drink?"

*

After the girl had run away, leaving Sigma to awaken in a panic and search for her in a fog to no avail, the Doctor decided not to return to their shelter even if it meant leaving Eva behind. He could not face her motherly wrath over failing to supervise the girl, nor could he deal with his shame if he continued to travel with her - not to mention with his worsening cough he was extremely contagious. In the end, it was better for them to go their separate ways. Sigma gathered up only the canister of food a sponsor had graciously given him (he had a suspicion Eva would kill him for leaving with anything else) and set out for nowhere in particular.

Dr. Klim had found running water to refill his sponsor canister when it began: the freezing jungle rain, soaking, torrential, inescapable. The moment the water descended on his shoulders Sigma felt as though he were being picked apart by thousands of blades of ice - if the touch of another's skin on his had given him instant cool relief, this was like drowning a burn in an ice bath.

Shaking, now, and hacking as he went, Sigma rose from the bank and spun around, searching fruitlessly for a place to hide. But no matter how thick the overgrowth, the rain continued to pelt down on him and Sigma lifted his head to the sky helplessly. He was too weak to make it back to Eva's shelter in the roots, which was far behind him now - but if he stayed, he was dead. Fatigue overcoming him, Sigma curled into a pathetic ball beneath a tree and shut his eyes, coughing into his hands.

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"It isn't that there's anything wrong with it, per se... But indulging so young is not healthy..." Sigma could not help but sigh to himself again as Eponine recounted her past drinking experiences. He knew that times had changed, but she had been in such a helpless state recently that it tormented him to think of her as an independent adult who could, in fact, drink her problems away if she chose.

When she passes him the beer, Sigma makes a face, uncertain if he should accept. He ultimately takes it off of her hands, deciding it was one less can she would drink for herself. His throat burns, his head swims... the thought of something cold to drink that could relax him if only a short time is certainly appealing. The Doctor knew his tolerance for alcohol was rather sad, and his illness would certainly not help... but if he was responsible about it, there wouldn't be a problem, right?

"...I suppose just one would not hurt."

She laughs and cracks her own beer open.

"Your health, Monsieur, for mine is failing!" She gulps at the beer, letting the fizzy, sour liquid swill around her mouth before she swallows. It makes her throat ache but it soothes the dull burn of her flu as well.

"Truly though, I do not see why you should fuss so. It is common where I am from for children to drink beer. Most of the gamins - that is our word for street children - they are all drunk. They nick the gin and the brandy left over from the drunks in the street. It is better than to steal water - for that only leaves you cold forever. I do not like beer, but I like what it does to my head. It makes me sleep."

Sigma grimaced, knowing he would not outlive the Tribute, barring any miracles. He took a sip while Eponine spoke, and while it was difficult to taste and swallow, the lukewarm liquid spread a cool feeling through his overheating chest and in his empty stomach. He leaned back against the wall of the enclosure and sighed contentedly.

"Concerns for your health aside, that's exactly why I fuss," he chuckled. "Letting it go to your head could get you into trouble." It was a harmless statement now, with the two of them closed off to the world. He paused. "We could use a good rest, couldn't we...?"

Sigma stared into the can pensively. He wished to change the subject to something more cheerful, for it was better to be happily drunk than a bitter drunk, but he wondered if there were any pleasant memories Eponine had left to tell. The Doctor was at a loss.

She laughed again at that.

"Sir, always I am in trouble in this place. And in the Capitol. And in Paris, and even after Cosette was taken, in Montfermiel. It is only how things are. And I shall drink to make me not realise it, if you please."

She raised her can to her lips, half defiantly, just to prove to Sigma that she'd do as she liked, and began to drink steadily. As her can emptied, she tipped her head further and further back until every drop had been drained. Only then did she set her can aside and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, which she licked, to make sure every bit of alcohol possible was inside her. It had hurt her throat, doing that, but she didn't care. She had proved her point, and she smirked triumphantly at Sigma.

"Are you tired? I am not so - perhaps another drink shall have me asleep; this beer is stronger than the one from Paris."

The Doctor watched the girl down her beer in surprise. His can still almost full, he realized he needed to catch up to her pace. Sigma lifted his drink to his lips and tried to finish it quickly, snatching up another one preemptively. Two less Eponine would get to drink, now.

But Sigma was not the iron stomach that Eponine was. A numbness was beginning to wear away at the edge of his consciousness and he rubbed his eyes drowsily. He was a young man no longer. "Slow down, now," he said with a laugh, "or else I will be asleep." Dr. Klim tried to pass it off as a joke, as she had shown that she would no longer listen to his advice.

Still he was desperate to change the subject. "You know, Eponine, listening to you talk about where you came from, I realize there's still quite a bit we have yet to learn about eachother," he began uncertainly. Perhaps the alcohol was beginning to speak and he had forgotten they were on television. "You know, if there was ever anything you wanted to ask about me, I wouldn't hesitate to tell you..."

Edited 2013-12-05 19:52 (UTC)

"No?"

He had her attention, and she stopped, mid beer-crack to focus properly.

"Will you tell me more of where you came from? What you did. Who your Papa was, where you grew up? Will you tell me of the women you mention and the child you have? I would like to hear everything."

She lay back in the poisoned grass, and plucked a single strand, tickling her lip with it.

"After all, Monsieur , we have all the time till someone finds us, and these Capitol people with their nasty -cameras are they called? - will love to know, I know that."

"That's a lot of questions," Sigma said with a grin, though his empty stomach tightened as Eponine mentioned his son. "I suppose we do have the time..." But he wished to pretend that their conversation was private, that whatever he said to Eponine was between the two of them and the two of them alone.

Leaning back on the wall of the cave again, Sigma raised his eye to the ceiling. "I was born in the year 2006 in California. You know, it's the same place..." He had almost said 'where Howard lived,' but thought better of it. Quickly searching for how to finish the sentence, he spat, "...where the second to last Arena was held. Do you remember? I used to live around there." In this case 'around' meant a commute from anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour or more depending on how insane the traffic was, but it was a reasonable substitute.

"My parents divorced early into their marriage and my mother raised me. I did not see my father often, and it took me a long time to realize he wasn't much of one." Sigma smiles in spite of himself. Just as he was to his son, in turn.

He suddenly remembered something considerably less grim she might find interesting. Sigma had never directly asked Eponine what era she came from, but he had an idea - he pushes himself off of the wall and leans towards her. "You know, Eponine, I've told you before there were billions of people alive when I was young. Allow me to explain to you what I mean... I'd wager that in the time you're from, there were no more than 500 million people alive on Earth. When I was your age, there was more than seven billion," he explained. "Think of the largest of cities you've been to, and then imagine it more than ten times as crowded. That would roughly equal out to the scope of the place where I was raised."

"Two thousand and six... Two THOUSAND and six...! Truly, Sir, I cannot even imagine such a date. Is the world really so different? I cannot imagine it any other way."

She traced her blade of grass around her nose and over her eyebrow, down over her cheek, her chin, onto the other cheek and round her other eyebrow to begin again.

"You lived in a strange world - are all your houses fitted with carriages, then? And where do you keep the horse for it? You allow them in your house? That was a strange arena - I did not like that one. Monsieur Draco magicked me so I had to - I had to..."

She had to eat Howard's face. That had been the worst arena so far. Quickly, Eponine gulped at her beer, downing it without stopping. She didn't want to think about that.

Once she was finished with the can, she lay down again. She could feel it starting to take hold now, that cloud of dullness descending over her brain, numbing everything. And it was all better. With a groan, she rolled so that she was on her side, facing Sigma.

"I can't imagine anywhere being more crowded than Paris, Sir. If you could see it - such people. Everywhere. And the houses, higgledy piggledy and people, ten sometimes, stuffed into one room, and children and men and girls like me, all sleeping in the streets, in the alleys, under bushes and in ditches or jails. So many people, Sir. You cannot imagine it."

Sigma laughed at her reaction to his birthyear - but his smile slowly fell as Eponine recalled the Arena. He did not mean to upset her and had intended for his story to distract her from the cruel realities of the Games, and was unfortunately failing.

"I know, Eponine. It was like that in some places at home, as well," he softly admits with disappointment. He does not bother to answer her question about the horses and moves on, for fear she might conjure up more bad memories.

Dr. Klim takes a long swig of his second can before continuing. "I studied Genetics. I fear a comprehensive explanation may overwhelm you, but it's the study of... the 'code'... the 'essence' of what makes us what we are. Why certain traits are passed on from parent to child, how our body operates, why diseases occur." Satisfied with his in-a-nutshell summary, he moves on.

"...But that also meant that there were those who studied how to create disease. When I was a little older than you are now, a devastating contagion was released by those with a cruel religious agenda. ...A genocide, Eponine." Sigma closed his eyes. "It was a quick end to everything. My parents did not make it. I took shelter, and was one of the few left alive - in the entire world." Because of his gift. His curse that let him see it all, even live whole lifetimes in the future, before it ever happened. Because he was one of the few that could have done something about it, and failed. Now it was Sigma's turn to finish his second can.

His vision swims as the can leaves his lips, he rubs his eyes to sober up. The good Doctor sighs deeply as he draws into the annals of his memories he had shut away. "...But there was another who survived with me," he reminds himself wistfully. Reaching for another can, Sigma grasps it with two fingers and swirls the full container around playfully without taking a drink. His cheeks are red with drunkeness or love. "...Her name was Diana." Sigma says her name slowly, tasting the sound, as if the bearer of that name were more precious than jewels or more important than an Empress. In that moment Sigma seemed to glow with adoration, and it may very well have been true for him that there was no other in the universe - in any universe - who had ever loved as much as he still loved that girl.

Edited 2013-12-09 00:00 (UTC)

"Oh." Eponine didn't know what to say, really. It felt like Sigma was about to start an epic story of some sort - the story of his life, and there had to be a lot of it, for he was the oldest man that she knew. And it was nice, as well, that he was finally opening up to her. She had sensed, ever since she had met him, that he was keeping something from her - and she didn't like that at all. It kept a wall between them, almost. She couldn't feel close to him - she didn't feel like she knew him, whilst he knew nearly everything about her. Did he not trust her?

But perhaps now she was being trusted enough and at last Sigma was going to tear down the veil. She really didn't want to interrupt his story with mindless chatter - and it sounded like such a lovely story to her, full of romance and tragedy - just the sort she liked best.

She rolled over, so that she was lay next to him, just milimeters away from Sigma.

"Tell me about her, Sir."

Soothed by Eponine laying at his side, Sigma's eye flutters shut as he pulls his memories of Diana to the surface. Perhaps this would be a question Eponine would come to regret.

"She..." The old Doctor stops to sigh. He does not know where to start or how to justify how much he loved her. "She had red hair and blue eyes. There was a line of light freckles along her cheek and nose... she was slim, but not tiny..." Her looks are not nearly the most important thing about her, but he explains it to Eponine nonetheless to put an image in her mind of fair, beautiful Diana. In fact, those traits may have been repulsive to anyone listening in from the Capitol, but they were lovely to Sigma. "My love, she was kind, gentle, and strong. She had much to shoulder, more responsibility than anyone should have to carry in their lifetime..."

He began to drink again, eye still shut. It's a miracle he does not spill his beer all over himself. The lip of the can lingers on his mouth for he cannot decide on what to say, each moment too precious and intimate to be shared on television. Finally, after a long swig, he begins again. "It takes a magnificent woman to love a man with no arms or eyes, Eponine," he says quietly. "My little blue bird... I wish we could have had a family. Perhaps... a little girl..." He keeps his eye shut so Eponine cannot see the sadness that has crept into his soul, though his hand rests just above Eponine's head, dipping down once in awhile as if to stroke her hair but drawing back nervously at the last moment. With as much as he had revealed and so suddenly, it was fair to say the Doctor was well and truly drunk by now. "My son wasn't hers," he says bluntly, opening his eyes and escaping the dream. It still made him sad that she could have been. He had tried to give him his mother...

"She sounds perfect, Sir." There is envy in Eponine's voice. How she wishes that someone, ANYONE, would talk about her in such a manner. How she wishes that someone would love her enough to love her imperfections.

She bites her lip when he talks about wanting a child - a little girl. It cuts into her, those words. A little girl, and here he was, stuck with her. Not little at all, and more woman than girl. It was a shame for him. A shame for her. She is a poor substitute for his dreams.

"Tell me, Sir." She sighs. "Tell me the rest."

He cannot. There is no force in the world, not booze or any drug, that can get him to be honest with Eponine in 'public'. Should his past as a gamemaker, or even as a man who kidnapped innocent people for his own gain, be made known to the audience, well... Without a doubt, no Tribute would come to trust him again, and he would lose Eponine, too.

And so Sigma is dishonest, looking to the ceiling to avoid lying to Eponine's face. The details are left out to spare himself remembering them. "She left me and I raised a child with another woman, a very close friend of mine." He cannot tell Eponine he gave life to his own son simply to raise him as a participant for his game, nor can he explain to her what a 'clone' is. He tells himself it was to spare her the explanation, but in truth, he was terrified she might think of his boy as sub-human. "...The human race was dying off, after all," he substitutes weakly.

There's a long pause as he considers what to say next. His long life, trapped inside Rhizome-9, was not a particularly exciting one without the death games he played. He acts as though that is the end; and the three of them lived happily ever after... "Eponine, there is something I want you to see." The wound is still fresh on his heart and it pains him to recall Kyle's face, his own face, and so Sigma tries to share the burden. "...I actually still possess a photograph of my son," he says cryptically. "When we get out of here, I would like very much to show you. I think the two of you would have made fast friends."

Does she know he's lying? No - no, of course not. She isn't a mind reader and she's feverish and drunk as well. But in the back of her mind, or perhaps the voice is in her feet - she can't tell any more - it whispers in slurs that something's missing. She pays it no heed. Later, she'll remember this conversation as a haze between dreaming and reality, mixing imaginings of Sigma's descriptions with his words.

"Do you think so?" She's doubtful. She can't see herself being friends with Sigma's son, really. Not for any particular reason... just because. Because she doesn't seem to keep friends very well.

She curls up a little, pulling her knees up to her chest, and despite her headache and how hot she feels, and how damp her skin is, she shivers.

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[OPEN] The night won't compensate the blind

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