(closed) There's enough brass in here to make a spittoon.

[swill]

Who| Hawkeye, Joel, and Rat
What| Joel tries to help, and then Rat goes ahead and does so
Where| Nearing the District 6 wing, and then in it
When| Early in the game, Mini-Arena
Warnings/Notes| Injuries and death, of course!

Joel
He wanted to go home.

He'd have nearly four hundred dollars if every time he uttered the thought was worth a dime. A month's salary, and the more of those he could rack up the sooner he'd pay off Uncle Sam's goat- and Hawkeye can't believe it, you know, that his arm's broken, that his skin's torn, that his head must be purple and part way swollen along with the rest of his body, and he's thinking about the goat that financially ruined his life. It had been his first thought coming up the pod into the jungle of the first Arena and now it was-- well, and now it was here, just giving his mind something to mull over with silent, seething resentment at the inability to grieve something of importance. Like his health, for one. Like not being able to take a steady or silent step (and Hawkeye knew the straggling wasn't silent because he could hear his own footsteps echo, damn the warped noise of the maze). Like the way he still held on to the bag with the water and treats and first aid kit inside as if it would help. It just might, if he found another shadow around the next corner and if the shadow turned out to be friendly.

Truth be told, though, he didn't want to run into anybody. He hadn't met anybody friendly. Hawkeye was determined to not die. He'd be disappointed but that was how life worked, and it'd build character or something to try. Damn it, he was going to try. That meant not one more scuffle or else he'd fall over from the sheer excitement of it, his heart giving out like an old man's might at the sight of dame. He might just fall over now and call it quits- the adrenaline was wearing thin and so were the pills and so was the voice of unreasonable reason that told him he might just make it. The walls around him turned to something like concrete, and that told Hawkeye he was near some prize. Then Hawkeye heard footsteps that couldn't be his own because he had stopped walking for the sake of hissing in a breath and leaning against the wall. He allowed himself a moment of sanity were his face contorted in pain and he worried over his body. It almost seemed like his vision blurred for a moment when he lifted his head and saw a big, bearded fellow. And it was supposed to be a joke when Hawkeye rolled his head back and whined, "Take me, I'm yours."

Rat
If the clock had chimed an hour yet or not, Hawkeye didn't know. He'd honestly be disappointed in himself if he couldn't will himself to last past the first hour, though on the other hand, the fact that he had no token for himself yet made him wish anxiously the hands on the clock didn't move at all. It was a conundrum, and it stumped and stupefied him. Arenas before had made his stomach churn and lurch but the feeling of prosecution had been significantly less. And funny that, when now the game wasn't to hunt each other, but hunt the tokens instead. The game wasn't to beat each other to a pulp, though Hawkeye well resembled one as he shuffled along, but to beat the countdown. He was being prosecuted by a clock-- and idea was stupid enough to make him want to not play. He had worried about it before, about how much faith he put in the Capitol and their ways of playing God, and if it weren't for that new and twisted faith, Hawkeye might just not have believed the part about not being brought back to life if they failed to cooperate. But he did believe it. And he had a will safe and ready in some office somewhere- wherever the hell the Army kept those things- and he had known he was going to die long before he was brought to Panem, and he'd been terrified before, but. But Jesus Christ, being told the fact flat-out was exhausting work to accept.

The asphalt walls were silent and boring. He ran into dead ends left and right and wondered how low the odds in the betting pool must now be in his favor, and how pissed anybody must be if they had ever been dull enough to bet on his survival in the first place. He was pretty sure he had come face to face with the exact same end twice now, and one time Hawkeye thought it was a good idea to let off steam by further bruising himself and throwing himself against a wall, just to see if it would nudge. It didn't.

Whoever said you couldn't teach an old dog new tricks was a god damn liar, because Hawkeye never tried that again. He trudged left and found himself sore to step over a discarded wheel. He wondered if there were bicycles around and by the time the thought passed over his mind, he was silently mouthing a curse to Finnick for no good reason- sorry, Finnick. Hawkeye felt like he was practically, suddenly ensnared in a tunnel of gears. One leg shook to keep still in between the spoke of one wheel, another rose jerkily to step over a ridge, his shoulder nearly brushed something metallic-- and Hawkeye wondered why he couldn't just turn into a ferret and get the puzzle done with. He choked out a cry when he had to duck and was forced to turn his broken arm at an angle. He choked out another when he saw a table near but realized something moved under his belly at the moment, and then when a gear caught his ankle. It was a Christless meatgrinder, and Hawkeye leapt forward like a spooked show horse. One. He would get one token this hour, at least, and no-- no, no- he wouldn't lost a limb getting it.

Comments

Squeak squeak

[saveswithsong]

If he'd had his rats with him, he'd have a different strategy entirely for this particular room. They were surely strong enough to bring back whatever token this area had. They weren't so sadistic to make people carry back a 10 pound sprocket, were they? He was glad he didn't say that out loud to give these assholes any ideas.

Rat negotiated the room one step, one gear, one chain reaction of movement at a time. Being so light on his feet meant sometimes he didn't even set off any movement. But his luck was about to change. He was presented with a massive gear, and he had two options: he could ride it up and over the top, or scurry under it like the rodent he was. Crouching, he could see under it that the pavilion was just there. But he couldn't see well enough to know what waited for him up above. A known risk was preferable to an unknown one. There wasn't much space, but he was quite sure he could fit. Especially if he timed it so that he was between the teeth.

So down on his belly he went. The machete was held in a backward grip so that it pointed out in front of him as he pulled himself forward on his elbows. He waited a moment to assess the timing, and scrambled in as quickly as he could once he had what he wanted.

Halfway along he curled his legs in as the teeth of the gear came swinging down behind him, out of the way just in time.

But he hadn't anticipated a small clump of tiny gears whirring away just on the other side. They bit into his hair and as soon as he felt the tug he knew what he had to do. He reached up to check how much distance he had. That was a mistake. The gears caught a couple of his fingers and by the time he got them free they were gone to the first knuckle. And he had no choice but to take the chance. He swung the machete behind his head, as close to himself as he could. If he knicked himself, it wouldn't matter as long as he didn't get chewed up.

He felt the tug release, and he rolled forward. He looked back just in time to see his deep blue hair, attached to a chunk of skin and blood, disappear into the tiny whirling gears. Some of his hair, still attached at the perimeter of his hairline, hung lankly around his head. It stung where some fell into where he'd scalped himself. His hand ached, and he was sure it was adrenaline that kept it from hurting worse. He could tend to his wounds after he made sure he was alone for now.

He wasn't. But they weren't a likely threat. "Hawkeye. I never get to see you when I'm at my best." Somehow a smirk made it onto his face, despite everything.

[aintyourdad]

Joel's priorities had shifted, very slightly, this time around.

The last arena, it had been pretty clear - keep Ellie alive, and after that had proven impossible, his own survival instincts had taken over and carried him through to his own end, for whatever that was worth.

But this time, there was something else. Ellie wasn't here, and if he didn't get all the tokens, or get to the end with them in time - he was dead. Really and truly dead. He'd become another person who'd left Ellie behind. That thought was what drove him on this time - that, and making sure none of Ellie's other friends left her behind, either.

He was going to make sure they all came back to her, whether he liked them or not. What mattered was that she liked them, and would be devastated if they didn't come back.

The voice that greeted him as he turned the corner was one such - grating to his ears, a thorn in his side since he'd first met the man, Joe couldn't stand to be in the same space with Hawkeye for more than a few minutes, normally. But he was a mess. "Shit, are you alright to walk?"

Liking or not liking was beside the point in an arena. It was about keeping Ellie's friends alive.