thearena | welcome to the Jungle, we've got fun and games [closed to Joan]

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welcome to the Jungle, we've got fun and games [closed to Joan]

Who| Guy and Joan and then eventually Guy's killer
What| Teaming up and friendinating more while probably having sad feelings about humanity being all cruel to itself and junk
Where| In the jungle
When| Arena Week 6
Warnings/Notes| Probably gonna get Guy all dead up in here so murder time murder time blood blood blood

It was strange how much a few weeks could change a man. When Guy had been shoved into the arena, he'd been a panicked mess, but a well-fed, well-rested, able-bodied panicked mess with a good idea on how to survive. Now he'd gone far too long without food. He was feeling weak and losing muscle mass; it wasn't like he had much fat to burn. The poisoning and injuries certainly hadn't helped. A strange sort of apathy had settled over him. It wasn't the worst thing, because it meant he wasn't terrified absolutely all the time, but it was probably more lethargy from the hunger rather than any sort of zen calm.

Okay, maybe it was a little bit of zen calm. When you lived a life knowing every day might be your last and that every one you weren't dead was a blessing, death was still something to be afraid of, to be avoided, but its inevitability was something that could be accepted.

So inside, he really wasn't as much of a mess as he was on the outside.

Considering what a mess he was on the outside, though, that still wasn't saying much.

When Joan and him wandered into the same clearing, the sight that would greet her would be wildly different than the first time she'd met Guy. His skin was paler like he was - or had been - ill, and filthier because he'd often used mud to cool off and as camouflage. His hair was matted and even more unkempt. His nose and neck were bruised with nasty purpling bruises in various states of healing, and his body now sported countless small injuries. Cuts and scrapes, a nasty looking sore on his shoulder that wasn't quite infected but wasn't quite healing either...

One injury wasn't so small - the long gash up the right side of his face had left it a mess, covered in smeared, dried blood, and scabbed over. It had only narrowly missed his eye. Even his eyelid was cut slightly.

The moment he saw Joan's movement and heard the sound of the brush, he held his spear at the ready, a situation which begged an important question...

With the state he was in and the time that had passed, was he still the same, still as gentle, as when they'd met the first time? Or had he been pushed enough that pointless violence seemed a better way to respond to things in the arena?

"Joan," he said shakily.

He didn't lower the spear.

Maybe he had concerns about how desperate she'd gotten since he last saw her, too.

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Guy nodded solemnly, gathering from the context of the conversation what 'executed' meant, since the word was unfamiliar.

"Like I said, I'll stay in line," he repeated, making sure it was loud enough so that anyone listening in would hear it. "I won't do anything to upset them. I'll do whatever they want."

Publicly.

Privately? Well, that was a different story. Guy planned to misbehave. His fellow Tributes were possibly someday going to find themselves shocked at his capacity for getting into trouble.

"I wouldn't go that far," she said. "Just try to be smart about it, okay? The people in the Capitol have a lot of power, and they're pretty brutal. I have a friend who was caught working against the Capitol. They cut out his tongue."

"Nnnguh."

Guy swallowed thickly, suddenly acutely aware of the sensation of his tongue in his mouth.

"Yeah, no, I think I'll just go with the mostly unquestioning obedience there," he said nodding fervently. "Other than when it crosses a huge moral line in the sand, then I'll have some trouble, but other than that, it's probably the safest thing."

He looked around, wondering where the invisible eyes were. "So I would go that far - and I'm sure the people watching right now would agree that the smartest thing to do is to stay in line and try to do what they want."

He looked at her pointedly, then rolled his eyeballs all around, hoping that she'd catch on to the fact that he was just playing things up for the cameras. If people were watching, the best thing to do while they were watching was pretend he was too afraid to try to fight against them at all - especially when that was the opposite of the truth.

She got it, and wondered if he realized how suspiciously obvious he was being. It probably wasn't worth pointing it out at that moment, though...no need to draw undue attention to it. Instead, she tilted her head, looking at his face.

"Can I take a look at that gash?"

All that mattered was that she knew it should be dropped for now. There were times in the future he would be angered into dropping all subtlety, but for now, he wanted to make it a non-subject. He wanted to try to learn to be discreet didn't want to draw attention to himself as someone willing to stir trouble.

He nodded.

"It didn't get my eye. Well, it did, but just the eyelid."

It was a fairly clean cut, from a straight-edged weapon. Mercifully, it hadn't been poisoned like the dart to his shoulder had been. It wasn't infected yet but the skin around it was an angry red so it was definitely still irritated.

Yet was the operative word. It definitely needed tending.

"It's too late for stitches. You have to do that within six hours of the injury. But I can clean and bandage it. Would you like me to?"

"Are you a doctor?" he asked, curious now. "I've met a few of those. Healers. One of them saved my life when I got poisoned."

He added, "If you are, it makes sense. You're very kind and you seem to value life the way...people should. If they can manage it."

He valued his own life just a little too much to be as pacifistic as Joan but he respected it even if he din't entirely agree with it. He agreed in principle with the preservation of human life, if not always in practice.

"I just learned about doctors here. In this place. It seems to me the kind of thing that attracts gentle people to it."

Even Hawkeye was gentle in his way. Brusque and sarcastic, but gentle. In fact, he'd seemed like a gentle man confronted with that fact that he didn't live in a gentle universe and was properly angry at that fact.

"I was," she said, reaching for the medical kit. Most of the antiseptic had been used on John's wound, as well as most of the bandages. She swallowed looking at it, remembering how John had died. In the end it didn't really matter, did it? They'd all die. If they were brought back by the Capitol, it would be without their physical wounds or scars. If they weren't brought back...well. Then it still didn't matter, did it?

"I guess I still am, here. But I wouldn't call myself gentle, necessarily. Not all the time, at least. If Sherlock was here, he'd tell you."

She could be harsh and confrontational when she needed to be.

She took a gauze pad, put some antiseptic on it and started dabbing it on the wound.

"This will sting..."

It mattered more than she knew. Guy would have told her that had she voiced those thoughts aloud. The fact that some tried to mend things, even futilely, in the face of destruction gave him tremendous hope. It helped him feel human. Since death was inevitable, how people were forced to live before it mattered more than ever.

Even as the antiseptic stung his face, the fact she and others still cared enough to try helped make the sting of this place go away just slightly.

"Oooow ow ow," he said quietly, but he only flinched slightly, trying to hold still as best as he could. "What happened to His Giantness, anyway? Is he back at your camp?"

Edited 2013-12-10 06:05 (UTC)

At the mention of Sherlock, Joan's hands paused for a moment. Then she pulled them back and poured some more antiseptic on the gauze. She shouldn't have mentioned Sherlock, of course. Of course Guy would ask. Maybe she just didn't expect it to hurt so much. Thinking of Sherlock, thinking of John.

"Just me now," she said quietly before going back to cleaning out the gash.

Guy's hand stopped hers, just to hold it for a second. His expression made a very quick transformation to one of sympathy, making it clear that it was a state of being that was very easy for him to put himself in.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I hope he comes back."

Then he let her hand go.

"Do you need someone to watch your back? I've got extra water. I owe you for cleaning this up, anyway."

No one should have to be alone. This was something that Guy believed from the top of his heart (not even the bottom) down to his tippy toes.

She blinked as he took her hand, her eyes meeting his.

"Thank you," she said softly.

When he released her hand, she put them in her lap.

"I think that would work. We can watch each others' backs."

Guy nodded.

"And not for nothing, where I'm staying right now has a pretty nice view," he said, as if he had a de-luxe apartment in the sky.

She tilted her head at that, looking puzzled.

"This island doesn't really have much high ground. From what I've seen, it doesn't even have a beach anymore. How does your place have a view?"

He gestured for her to follow and picked up his spear.

"Very important question: Can you climb?"

"Ah," she said with a smile as he followed him. "I see. Yes, I can. How do you keep from falling out?"

"You'll see, but let's stop by the seep first."

He directed her through the brush to a place that seemed like any other part of the jungle, covered with leaves.

But then he lifted a part of the forest floor away - he'd fastened some leaves and sticks together into a sort of camouflage cover, and underneath was a little pit, lined with stones. Clear water filled the little pool.

"Next best thing to rainwater. I don't know what about it makes it do that - although I have some theories now after people have told me about germs - but the soil is a little sandy here and when it's sandy, it makes it so the water doesn't make you sick like if you try to drink it out of a lake or even a stream. I've been drinking from it from the last few days and it's been fine."

He stooped down to fill up his bottle.

"Just be careful to not disturb the stones. They help keep the silt at the bottom."

"Oh my god."

She crouched, took a close look at the setup. It was so simple and so brilliant at the same time.

"This is amazing." She dug an empty bottle out of her bundle and held it up. "May I?"

"Go for it. It won't run out anytime soon. All the rain means you just have to dig a little bit down and there it is."

He reached down and took a few handfuls of water so that he didn't empty his bottle again.

"I've been fine on water. It's warm where I'm from, mostly forests like this, but a lot of desert, too, so there are some places where water's hard to come by. I know lots of little tricks."

He shrugged. "It's the food part I've had the most trouble with. Nothing in this place is edible. Nothing. I really have no idea what's so entertaining about watching people starve to death."

"Sherlock noticed that right from the beginning," she said as she filled her bottle. "The fewer resources there are, the hungrier people are, the more likely they'll fight and kill to survive."

She takes a long drink of water. It was so good. She had been rationing for so long that drinking her fill felt like a miracle.

She finally lowered the bottle, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"I have some food. It's not much. We'll want to ration carefully. But it's better than nothing."

Guy nodded appreciatively at the offer of food.

"This way," he said, leading her along. "I've got a hammock up a tree that I made out of vines. It'll be a little cramped with the two of us, but it should hold and there should be enough room for us to sleep comfortably."

He peered over his shoulder at her. "It's why I made it. I figured a night or two of actually decent sleep wouldn't hurt."

A hammock. That was an incredible idea. A great way to be tucked away safely, able to actually sleep without keeping an eye half-open for people or dinosaurs.

"I haven't had decent sleep since this thing started."

"I don't think we can get more than another night or two out of it before it's not sturdy enough to support our weight - everything rots quickly in this place. But a night's a night."

He stopped in front of a large tree and pointed up.

Nothing was visible up there. The foliage hid it from view and so did the additional camouflage he'd made, just in case.

"Let me go up first and get my spear and knife tucked away. If I were to fall and nick you or if you fell on me..."

The knife was in a sheathe he'd carved out of wood but the spear went into a holster of sorts that he'd made at his back and he didn't have any cover for the point. He was right that it could be disastrous if he or she fell, because even if they survived the drop, that was an accident waiting to happen.

It was a difficult climb, too. Guy had picked a good tree to mount a defense from, that was clear, but with him so exhausted and hungry, it wasn't the easiest of climbs. Fortunately, he was more adapted to climbing than some. There were a few places that Joan would see him just dig his fingers into the bark and hoist himself up rather than using a branch. Under more ideal circumstances, she might have been able to see him climbing up the thing in just a matter of a minute or two but this time, he had to take care because of his exhaustion and it slowed him down.

She watched him climbing, frowning. It looked really hard. She was athletic than most people, but she was also hungry and sleep deprived and generally worn down. She had no specific experience with climbing, and although she had been able to climb a couple trees in this arena, she was concerned this would be outside of her abilities.

And hauling the canned food up there was probably impossible. She started looking around for somewhere to stash the bag.

"Don't do that, someone might get it," he called down from above, looking down at what she was doing and figuring out what she was thinking.

He tucked his spear in a safe steady place in the branches and unloaded his own vine back and hung that from a branch as well so he no longer had to carry it on his back.

"Leave it for a second. I'll come down and help you up, then hoist it up."

He cut a vine and pulled it free from the trees, tying one end to a branche, then started to climb back down, carrying the other end with him. When he was not far above her head, he dropped it down to her.

"Tie it to your bag, make sure it's tight. Then leave it and start climbing. I'll help you past any parts you have trouble with, then I'll hoist it up with us from the other end."

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