Sleep pretty darling, do not cry.

[the_marshal]

WHO| Wyatt and Howard
WHAT| They've got one less thing to worry about.
WHERE| The garage.
WHEN| Week 3ish, post volcano-angel explosion, the night of Aunamee's death.
Warnings/Notes| Talk of death, some mention of gore.



The arena was quiet. The familiar announcement about the closing museum having ushered the building and its occupants into another still, cool night. Deep in the garage, where the shadows had the greatest hold, nothing stirred.

Propped in the front seat of the van, Wyatt kept a silent vigil. Occasionally, his head would dip to rest his scarred forehead against the glass and his breath would plume, a flash of white, but he said nothing. Moved no more than that - no more than the idle brush of his thumb over the latest picture from Max, tracing the words he'd already memorized.

He watched the dark, and listened to the soft sounds drifting up from the back of the van. Took comfort in the rhythmic in and out of Howard's breath, the little rustle of the bag as he shifted restlessly in his sleep.

They both hurt. Both hungered and ached and stunk of their own blood and burned flesh, but they were alive. Still alive, despite everything.

The rolls were fuller now, the parade of names in the middle of the night growing steadily longer. Enough so that Wyatt sometimes let himself dream. Let himself chew over the possibility of making it to the end - him and Howard - and of making the Capitol take them both. Of both of them being free.

He knew it wasn't likely, knew deep down they'd never allow it even if they made it, but it was something to think about. Something to warm himself with in the cold and dark.

...And they did get closer, each and every night.

When the music started tonight, the familiar theme, Wyatt shifted and rolled down the window to let the names waft in.

Comments

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

It's hard to tell being awake apart from sleeping. In both, the darkness he's surviving through is filled with memories, phantom images that are taking up space in the place sight once was. He hears when he's awake, and he hears when he's dreaming, and the days drip into each other in a blur of pain and uncertainty. He forgets which conversations he's had with Wyatt and which he hasn't.

Wyatt's done his best to make sure Howard's comfortable. That's meant fresh clothing and a warm blanket, the remains of the food from one of the cafes. It isn't much, but it helps. Howard spends most of his time lying relatively still in the back of the car, curled up under the blanket.

Wyatt leaves a thousand times in Howard's dreams, fewer times in waking life, when he goes to get supplies and do nothing more. Howard's having one of those dreams and whimpering to himself when the names are read.

[the_marshal]

Some nights Wyatt recognizes the names and feels a pang of regret, and of guilt at taking solace in their deaths. In seeing them as nothing more than a stepping stone to Howard's safety. Many he's never heard and feels nothing, just the same emptiness in his gut that grew every day he was in the arena.

But tonight there was one that drew more. A grunt of satisfaction, a flash in the pale eyes.

Aunamee, of District 12.

The voice offered nothing beyond that - none of the gory details that it sometimes provided, but that was enough.

Wyatt felt the spur pulling free of his side.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard wakes to sounds overhead, sounds that it takes many minutes to realize were words. He mumbles a little under the blanket and pulls it off, feeling around the back of the van and sitting up against the wall.

"Was that the names?" He yawns and coughs, then crosses his legs so Wyatt can come sit with him. He can't put words to the guilt he feels, making Wyatt sit up all these hours keeping guard because Howard physically can't do anything more than listen. Over the days he's gotten a better idea of Wyatt's injuries, the dislocated shoulder and the burns.

[the_marshal]

They were just finishing, the trailing ends of the theme fading away in the shadows when Howard spoke. Wyatt glanced back, then rolled his window back up and shifted out of the seat and into the wide end of the van, sitting slowly and carefully. Mindful of the wounds, so freshly closed, the skin fragile and thin.

"Yeah." He leaned against the wall, tucking his arm against his chest. (It was better than it had been, thanks to Hawkeye popping it back into place, but it was still stiff. Still ached.) "Short tonight, but Aunamee was on it."

What it meant to him, to know the bastard was gone, Wyatt knew would be double for Howard. That man everyone of the boy's boogeymen made flesh.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Aunamee. Aunamee dead.

Howard feels like he's floating, unweighted by the crushing, suffocating fear that he'll wake up and Wyatt will be dead, that Aunamee will be stroking his hair and licking a blade next to him. That he'll end up like Ellie.

Ellie, District One, killed by Aunamee and medical malpractice, the intercom had said. Howard hadn't cried. He'd just felt numb.

"Am I dreaming?" he asks quietly, then holds his arm out.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt reached out, took Howard's wrist in hand, grip gentle.

"Not anymore, son." He patted him lightly, guided his hand back down. "He's gone."

For now, at least. Though with any luck, the Capitol would correct the mistake of bringing him back in the first place.

"We don't have to worry about him anymore."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"He's gone." Howard suckles at each syllable, draining it of all its meaning for his own nourishment. It's as if he's saying a prayer.

He grips Wyatt's hand back with his own, his own squeeze tight, as if clinging on to Wyatt to keep him from floating away. For the first time since the light, Howard grins. It's an awful expression on his face now, but honest.

"We can make it to the end."

[the_marshal]

Wyatt exhaled, a long release. Not happy, exactly, but eased. One of the knots twisted up in his guts untangling.

"Still got'a ways to go," he murmured truthfully, knowing some of the faces still out there - capable, strong, ready to win. "But I'd say the odds jus' took a turn for us."

He held onto Howard with one hand, rubbed the photo between his fingers in the other, his head resting back against long window of the van.

"...I'm goin' to give it everythin' I got, Howard."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

There it is, of course. Reality coming in like a heavy layer of snow, the reminder that Aunamee isn't the only threat. Howard's face falls slightly, his voice even more.

"Me too," he says. His nod is firm. "Not that I got much to give, but."

Really, the best he can promise Wyatt is that he won't just let himself die. That he'll keep trying to survive. That he won't accept his blindness as a death sentence.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt heard it, the shift in Howard's voice and felt a pang of guilt deep in his chest. He should have just kept his mouth shut and let the boy have a moment.

"Maybe if we make it together, you an' me as the last two, we can talk 'em into takin' us both," he murmured after a moment, deciding if he couldn't take what he'd said back, he could at least offer his quiet hope instead. Give Howard something else to focus on.

However unlikely, there wasn't any harm in talking about it.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"It's happened before. They let the double-suicide thing slide." And really, Howard can think of worse fates than dying with someone he cares about. He doesn't feel that the stakes are terribly high.

Howard leans back, then lets go of Wyatt's hand to fondle his necklace. The chain is all tarnished now, the shine worn of by being clenched in Howard's hands so many times over.

"Have you gotten any sleep, Wy?"

[the_marshal]

"I'd like it," he admitted quietly, as close he'd come to telling anyone - even Max - how he feared his own death this time. How much he wanted to live, how much he wanted to go back....

Howard worried over his necklace, the gentle clink of the charms in time to the soft crinkle of Wyatt's pictures, rubbed between his fingers. To each their talismans. Their hopes.

"I will," he promised. "Soon, when the light's come back again. Ya should try an' get some more sleep now yerself."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Can you talk to me while I nod off? It helps with the pain."

Howard lowers himself back down in the back of the van, pulling a blanket over himself. He clutches the charms still, rubbing them against a patch of unburned skin on his neck.

"Tell me what's on that paper you been holding this whole time. I know you got a note or something. I got Daredevil ears now."

[the_marshal]

The reference meant nothing to Wyatt, the words just that, but he understood what the boy wanted. They'd done this often since Howard had been blinded. Making up for the loss of one sense by filling another. Talking long into the dark until he finally relaxed enough to sleep.

But where he'd happily drawled on about his brothers, his home, his friends... he hesitated, where it came to this sudden request. His old world was gone, there was no harm in talking of it - nothing the Capitol could do, no one to hurt.

But Max was still out there. Even if he wasn't watching, the Capitol was, and while the man had accepted Wyatt's admission there in the privacy of his suite, he might not appreciate it being brought up in front of God and everybody.

"It's... from Max," he said finally, deciding that little bit couldn't hurt much. "It's a picture he sent with the medicine."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"What's it a picture of?"

It's a line of questioning that Howard can follow in the dark. In spite of everything, in spite of his broken hand and the blackness he lives in now, he still gestures with his hands, as if, for a moment, he's holding an invisible disposable camera in front of his face.

And he settles back, blanket pulled up to his chin, letting Wyatt's slow, rough voice guide him into the darkness of sleep.

[the_marshal]

He glanced up at Howard, shifting a bit as he settled, giving him room to get comfortable. Wyatt's legs a warm brace against the boy's back.

"It's a house," he told him softly. Voice dropping to a whisper both to help ease Howard into sleep and to maybe, just maybe, shut out the Capitol. As if they could have a moment here, just for themselves. "A farmhouse. Nothin' fancy, jus' walls an' a roof - a little porch."

His thumb brushed over the tiny wooden railing, hugging the front of the house. Crafted by loving hands, it was a sturdy house. A good house. One a man could be proud of.

"I took it for him while I was in the district. This one, an' a bunch'a others. I -- they reminded me'a him."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"It sounds nice." Howard doesn't go on - he knows if he does he's only tempting the Capitol to take it away from Wyatt. To bring the dream close if only to crush it, to see how much pressure they can put on their sheriff protagonist until he pops open like an egg.

The wet, soft parts everywhere.

Howard breathes deep. "Tell me about your horses?"

Wyatt's described them a few times recently, but it's not the content Howard cares about so much as the words, the voice.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt let out a long, slow breath, relaxing as the topic shifted.

It wasn't that he didn't like talking about Max - he had no shame in the happiness he'd found with the man - but he was painfully aware of where they were. Of who was watching. Of what they might do...

Of what Max might, or might not, feel.

Horses though, that was easy. He'd known many fine, handsome animals. And not a one of them had anything to fear from his affections.

Shifting, resting the photo on his thigh, palm over the little house, he leaned back and started to talk.