Watch out for the Good Samaritans

[alonelyboy]

Who| R and Aunamee
What| R is killed a second time by some damn good shooting from Rat. He's assumed dead, looted and left behind by Perry. Aunamee finds him and lays his hooks into him, nursing him back to "health"
Where| Cafeteria, could move later
When| Middle of week 2 after this
Warnings/Notes| References to death, zombie stuff


It's about an hour or so after R gets sniped; the bolt smashed into his chest, the world tilted and suddenly he was on the floor as agony blossomed and spread and he could only wheeze, his breath bubbling in his chest. Perry was there. He thought he was there. R remembers looking up at the face of a man he personally chewed up, his hand grabbing at his and squeezing hard, too hard. He'd tried to say something but all R could get out was some pathetic gurgling. Blood had bubbled around his lips. Stole whatever he had to say.

Must've died then, because everything after that blurs into a general feeling of pain, sounds, and then not even that.

And now here he is. Sprawled on his back in a puddle of blood, trying to fight his way back to consciousness. Again.

R shifts from where he's still lying on the tiles, his head lolling to the side, unaware he has a visitor. The crossbow bolt juts out of his chest like it's sprouted there as he moans.

Comments

[marcato]

From a distance, Aunamee thinks the boy is dying. Wouldn't anyone? Those gurgling moans. The way the crossbow stood up in his chest, tall and proud like a flagpole. He approaches with soft footfalls, his eyes sharp, his crowbar poised. He listens for the attacker. He can't be far away.

Up close, Aunamee thinks the boy is dying, too.

Oh, R, he thinks with a tinge of disappointment, his eyebrows wrinkling and his lips settling into a frown. It isn't mourning. It isn't even sympathy or pity. Aunamee wanted to find R this arena, wanted to prove his loyalty to the boy who doubted, and he doesn't think he can do it in the precious minutes (seconds?) that are left.

He kneels down and takes R's hand.

"Can you hear me?"

[alonelyboy]

R moans again, blood staining his teeth and coursing down the corner of his mouth. For once it's not someone else's. The weird thing is his blood tastes surprisingly...average. Same coppery taste. Same consistency.

"Hgggh..."

His eyes flutter open, half-lidded, to stare up at the dark ceiling. Someone's here. Know that voice. R's head turns toward Aunamee as he tries to focus and resolve the shadowy blur into a friendly face, his hand squeezing weakly around the other man's as if he's glad someone's there. Aunamee's hand is warm, warmer than his, and he - he remembers what he tasted like even now. When he'd just been a dead man out in the desert with his handsome face too bashed in to realize who he was. R's fingers twitch against his, trying to squeeze tighter.

The crossbow bolt narrows his world to a point. R's blood-stained lips tremble. What if he's really dying? ...What if he isn't?

Unaware that his thoughts are screaming where any old soul could hear them, R tries to speak. "Hegh....help....me."

[marcato]

Those are good words. Sweet, like sugar.

Help me.

His disappointment falters then dissolves, replaced by the ticklish sensation of being needed. In many ways, R reminds him of the car accident victims he would seek out in his youth. He couldn't read minds then, and so he maintained a distance, simply imagining the mental buzzes and whirrs of the victims and their saviors. He envied the EMTs, had fantasies of himself in one of those blue uniforms.

Help me.

"Yes," he says, soft. "I'll do just that."

He increases his grip on R's hand, making up for the strength the boy lacks. He snakes his other hand around to pull the bolt from his chest, releasing the plug that holds all of his blood.

[alonelyboy]

R holds on for dear life, his eyes starting to focus on Aunamee's shadow as it reaches over, wraps a hand around the bolt and -

He screams. Or in his head he screams as it jerks free. If he thought it'd hurt before, guess again: he's trying to convulse away from it as if he has anywhere to go, a shrill whimper escaping. His hand clenches down on Aunamee's, his mouth open and gasping. Fresh blood seeps out from the hole in his chest - it's red, Living-red, and flowing more freely than any zombie's ever could.

Between the amount of blood on the floor and where he'd been shot, R should be very, very dead. He's still somehow moving, still holding onto that lifeline between him and Aunamee with a dead boy's grip even if his flesh is too warm for zombie.

R's not sure how long it takes for him to formulate a word. It trickles out of his mouth like his blood, faint but still there. ".....Ow."

Okay, maybe he meant more than ow. His other hand flexes against the puddle of blood he'd died in, trying to sit up. For some reason he can't seem to find it in him to just go and do it, R surprised at how listless he feels. Might need more help.

[marcato]

Aunamee had been deeply unsettled the first time he met R. Here was someone who was living, but not living, dead, but not dead. He felt unsettled now, too. He was waiting for death’s little whispers, for that gentle puff of ending breath. He was waiting for the tremors. He was waiting for anything.

But there was nothing.

Aunamee shuddered, a quick involuntary movement that tightened his grip around R’s hand. This poor boy, he told himself, this poor boy doesn’t know when to die.

( --just like Aunamee doesn’t know when to die, just like how even in a pool of blood a mile long, he keeps moving and moving and moving --)

“Something is wrong,” he murmured. He reached out to touch R’s shoulders, to urge him back down to the ground where he belonged. “You’re less human than they promised.”

[alonelyboy]

The grip would almost hurt if it wasn't for the agony spreading out in waves from his chest. His lips glistened with fresh blood bubbling out as he twitched underneath Aunamee's hand. He...he knew? For once the fear began to overwhelm whatever pain he felt - thought he felt? - R's eyes open and staring at the man over him, his pupils blown out between the dark and the ugly wound in his chest.

To his shock, he realized could speak. It was the one thing he knew how to do when he couldn't seem to get to his feet or die like a normal human being. That sense of you're wrong, the Cure was wrong spreads across his body like a cold front.

"No," R said, only it came out more in a sob than anything else. "I'm human."

Except here he was, dead twice now and still kicking.

[marcato]

Even though this situation was disorienting, unpleasant, Aunamee couldn't help but feel a burst of pleasure at R's new fear. This was a boy who had once been resigned to his identity as a dead, incomplete freak of nature. Now that he was human -- or believed he was human -- he clung to that new identity with that same ferocity. Perhaps even more so.

How delightful was that?

"Maybe," he said. His fingers curled around R's shirt and he began to slowly drag him towards a collection of boxes (old dishware, napkins, plastic forks) so that they could stay out of sight. This was obviously going to take longer than anticipated.

"We both know you've been alive for far too long."

[alonelyboy]

R cries out as he's dragged, trying to squirm and unable to even manage that much because he's more or less dead weight at this point. His body leaves a trail of dark blood glistening against the cafeteria tiles as Aunamee moves the both of them to cover. At some point - he's not even sure - he grays out. When he comes to, he's lying behind a wall of boxes that no one's bothered to raid, still on his back and listening to Aunamee's voice purring.

"Just...lucky," R groans. He reaches up, flops his hand over his mouth like he wants to wipe away the blood. "I'm not -t not a zombie."

Not anymore. But evidence points otherwise and here he is with a hole in his chest, the bandages around his neck stained red. R lies there, struggling to breathe, struggling to think, his thoughts broadcasting his fear, his desire to cling to this life more than anything. Time fades. He's not sure if it's minutes or hours later.

"Stay. Please." R blurts. His hand gropes for something of Aunamee's. Some point of human contact because Living or Dead, he's always been starved for it.