thearena | All the other kids with the slumped cake mix

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All the other kids with the slumped cake mix

Who| Dave, Bro-zombie and OPEN with a closed Terezi prompt
What| Dave gets separated from Elsa, his brief luck is running out fast.
Where| Around the town, peeking around stores.
When| Just before Hellrena 2
Warnings/Notes| Manpain and zombie murder, naughty language watch out kids

Thus far, the Arena had probably gone a little too well. Granted, Dave got off to a bumpy start and he had watched Curtis the scientist die in front of him, but he was okay. More importantly, so was Elsa. He'd like to think he doesn't get attached easily, but they're Districtmates and they quickly stuck together through the crucial moments of the Arena. The hellish heat had nothing on her ice powers, and he could fight well enough to keep her safe from most things. Most, being the unfortunate keyword. They'd been shifting from house to house, rationing out the packs they'd been sent, but the fact that the two of them were coasting was enough to lead a couple of those dogs to their house.

Dave had protected Elsa as best he could, but eventually they'd split in different directions. He was sure he saw a flurry of blonde following him, he hadn't dared to turn around. It was only after he'd dived into the small window of an rundown old bookshop that he'd realised he wasn't being followed by her, or anything, he thought.

Of course, he wastes no time scrambling back out and searching through the fog for her, he isn't stupid enough to call out her name, but he lets out the occasional concerned murmur. A figure approaches him, and it is blond, but it certainly isn't Elsa. That is motherfucking Bro Strider in this post apopaloptic wasteland, looking fresh to fucking death. Or from death, really, as the case may be. Regardless of how strange he looks, Dave is quick to grab him by the wrist and jog him along with him, because that's clearly the natural thing to do.

Something is off, way off. He just can't bring himself to do anything about it, he won't abandon Bro and he won't kill him just for being a bit off. He probably just needs food, which Dave doesn't have, guess they're a two man search party now. Dave tries to be quiet, but through the piercing silence he occasionally tries to make conversation with Bro, who doesn't reply- but that's nothing new.

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[It's been a while since he's spent this much alone time with Bro. No Capitolites schmoozing, no cameras in his face, just the fear and the fog and his Bro dawdling behind him like he's cruising some hotty in the distance. Which, of course, Dave can only assume he's doing. He's as determined to find Elsa as he is to keep Bro with him, he denies the possibility of her death. She's fine, as fine as Bro and as fine as him. His thoughts always go to Karkat and Terezi, he's seen Karkat before when he helped him, but they hadn't stuck together. He doesn't know where Terezi is, he doesn't know if she'd want to see him even now, so he can't help worrying.

His foraging is proving pretty fruitless, which is a damn shame. He's sure all Bro needs is one of those ration bars, a tin of something and he'll be back to normal. It's the obvious explanation for how sluggish he is. Again, the silence is bothering him, so he casts a glance over his shoulder at the looming man.]

Pizza delivery is getting more and more inconvenient, right? [He shrugs.] First it takes half an hour, then an hour, then the pizza guy gets lost in some fog factory and you have to find him. It's sick. [A grunt is the only response he gets, he can only assume it's in agreement.] For real. [He understands the risk of talking to himself when people could be looking to pounce, but the silence is worse than the idea of that.]

[Terezi would recognize the sound of that rambling chatter anywhere. Her first instinct is to walk the other way when she hears it, to avoid a situation that might emotionally compromise her when she needs to be at her best. But her curiosity wins out in the end. She wants to know who he's talking to, who he's decided to partner up with. Whether or not they'll be able to keep him safe. Not that it's any of her business anymore.

But as he comes into her line of scent... She's not so sure that what she finds qualifies for being 'safe' or not.]

Pretty sure there has to be a place to deliver to. Nomads don't get pizza.

[Dave is tensing when she approaches already. He might be a little off his game, but he's still adept enough to avoid being snuck up on. Bro seems to have noticed too, and he's straightening up as much as his zombie like form allows. Dave holds an arm in front of him and gives him what he hopes is a meaningful look before turning to Terezi. By this point, he's not sure if he's relieved to see her or dreading the inevitable awkwardness.

Overall, he decides to stop being a manchild and start being happy that she hasn't died a horrible death yet.]

Guess we'll have to settle for DiGiornos then. [He shrugs, exhaling softly before drumming up the social stamina to say something meaningful.] So you're not dead. [Good job, Dave.]

Nope. Neither are you. [She returns the acknowledgement of the obvious, if only because it feels like the right thing to say.] You're getting better at that. Didn't need my help or anything.

[She steps a little closer. There's wariness in her posture, but it's not because of Dave.] Did they...bring him back, too? [She gestures to Bro, but it's clear that she realizes there's something... not quite right here.]

Edited 2014-06-28 05:39 (UTC)

I guess miracles really do happen, huh? [It's said dryly, but he's a little amused. He's too worried about Elsa to really let go and laugh, not to mention there's a residual awkward feeling that won't up and leave. He's glad when the attention turns to Bro.]

Sure did. Good as new. [He moves to pat Bro on the arm.] Actually, that might be giving him a bit too much credit. He's kinda.. I dunno. Vacant? I figure he needs something to eat. He's probably just master trolling. [He shrugs, pausing for a long moment before piping up almost hopefully.] Wanna help find food?

Edited 2014-06-28 12:29 (UTC)

[Master trolling. Yeah... Terezi's not so sure about that, but she's not about to make her case when she doesn't know if it's the truth or not.]

...Sure. [The hopefulness in Dave's tone--what she can hear of it--is sort of endearing. She wasn't intending on sticking around, but that sort of request makes it difficult for her to leave. And maybe if she lingers, she can find out what the hell is going on with Bro.]

I've still got some crackers in my pack, but that's about it. I smelled some fruit in the trees by that creepy theme park. Would not put it past them to lace the area with those zombie things, but it is a party with food. That's automatically better than a party without food.

I think I could brave a few zombies for some food. [Which is to say, he's feeling a little cocky with Bro by his side and he's hella fucking hungry.] I don't think anyone saw the day where I'd be risking my life for fruit. What's next? Broccoli. [He shakes his head almost regretfully.]

Lead the way. [He gestures forward, following Terezi through the fog to the amusement park. His mind isn't straying from Elsa, but he's keeping it together for the sake of a possible attack. When the area isn't surrounded by zombies? He's cautiously optimistic, picking fruit while checking his back all the while. When they've gathered enough, it's starting to sink into evening. Dave is definitely wearing down by this point, so it's not long before he suggests finding shelter for the evening.

He volunteers to keep watch for the first few hours, though he can't tell if Bro is sleeping or just sitting and watching him. It makes him nervous, but eventually the silence of the night and the exhaustion of the day weighs down on him enough to make him rest his eyes. A lot.

When he seems down for the count, zombie Bro makes his move almost instantly, using classic Strider stealth to make his way toward Terezi. He looms for a short moment, but his hands are around her neck quickly, pressing down on her windpipe with clear murderous intent. His mouth is a thin, emotionless line and he's remaining absolutely silent.]

[Sleeping in the arena is never easy. On one hand, she still trusts Dave--or at least she doesn't think that he'll attack her in her sleep. Whatever they had and whatever they might have left, it couldn't possibly have soured that much. Bro is a different story, especially with how weird and silent he's been... But he's been behaving all day, so maybe it's just the paranoia creeping up on her.

With Dave's offer to take the first watch, Terezi reluctantly gives in with minimal arguing. She's tired enough to eventually drift off while curled up against the furthest edge of their shelter. Just to give Dave some space, of course. She expects he'll wake her up when he wants to trade shifts.

What she doesn't expect is to be woken up by hands pressing down on her throat. She chokes as she wakes, her hands flying to Bro's wrists, clawing gouges in his skin with her claws. She writhes and kicks, trying to kick the human away from her, but all she manages to do is send her scrap of metal clattering against the bottles in her bag. At least it's more sound than she can currently make with her voice, try as she might to gasp out a call for help.]

[The more Terezi struggles, the tighter those hands squeeze. The thin line of his mouth is tightening into a grimace as the bigger man bears down on her, clearly trying to make a quick job of it. The clatter of bottles is enough of an alarm to Dave, his head snaps up and he has no time to berate himself for drifting off when he zeroes in on the scene.]

What the fuck- [He spits out, barely able to believe the fact that Bro would maliciously attack a friend.] Knock it off, Bro. [He yells with more bite than he's had in a long time, but it falls on deaf ears. When he sees Bro is ignoring him, he wastes no time sending a hard kick into the bigger man's ribs. It's a surprising enough attack to have him releasing Terezi, but that just means his sights are set on Dave.

Bro's hand falls onto the piece of scrap he'd brought along, and though it surprises Dave, he's digging into his pocket to pull out the bike chain he'd scavenged earlier.]

Just take it easy, Bro. It's Dave, c'mon. [He tries to sober him up, but nothing is getting through. Bro moves so fast it's almost a blur, in seconds he's up in Dave's face and that sharp, rusty scrap of metal is pressing into Dave with painful abruptness. Dave lets out a grunt of pain, but the pain is enough to make him realise. This is not Bro. They'd scuffled, but when they fought it was always with terms and with care and respect. The metal piercing him isn't respectful of anything, so Dave will whip that chain around his neck and pull it tight.

Of course the more he pulls, the further that metal presses into him. He lets out a choked sound of pain, trying to muffle it as best he can and channel the fury into getting rid of this Bro. The chain digs into his neck and soon he's letting out that sharp, blood curdling scream, wasting his breath on it before he slumps on top of Dave.

Dave draws in a deep breath, shades askew on his face as he glances at Terezi.] I think it might be your turn to keep watch now. [His voice is quite obviously strained, and he rolls Bro off to reveal the magnificently painful wound.]

[When the hands finally release from around her throat, it's not nearly soon enough for Terezi's tastes. She chokes in a gasp of breath and than several more, rolling onto her side and shakily trying to push herself up onto her hands and knees. Her instincts kick in: Get up, get away, protect yourself. Her hand goes to her piece of warped metal that she uses as a weapon.

Her throat hurts, and there's probably going to be bruises from that, but at least breathing is still a thing she can do. She turns back, now on her feet, to find Dave strangling the life out of his brother. Or rather--what appears to be his brother. Because she's pretty certain that that...thing isn't Bro.

Her suspicions are confirmed by the scream. It makes Terezi's toes curl, and that's definitely not the sort of noise a human normally makes. She moves forward with as much steadiness as she can manage. It's only then, while helping Dave to roll the body away, that she smells the severity of the wound that Dave took.]

You-- [She winces, a hand touching her throat at the pain that speaking causes. She wasn't expecting that, but it's not important. She pushes past it.] You are never allowed to keep watch again. Banned. You suck at it.

[Terezi drops to her knees next to Dave, trying to get a better idea of how badly he's hurt. This is fixable, right? She can fix this. She's tended worse... On a troll, maybe, but she really knows nothing about patching up a human. Except that they can't deal with blood loss nearly as well.]

Need to get the bleeding to stop... If you have a med kit, now would be the time to tell me.

Edited 2014-06-29 06:12 (UTC)

So I always get to sleep first. [He muses, letting out a shuddery breath as the corner of his mouth quirks upward into a half smile. A very tired one.] A little sleep sounds good right now, actually. Is there a La-z-boy around here, you think? I could use a nap. Or five. [Mostly so he doesn't have to feel through this while he's conscious, of course. There's an ever increasing buzzing in his ears and he feels like the temperature of the room just dropped. There's a muted curiosity as to whether Elsa just walked in, but he doesn't verbalise it.

Instead, he's starting to shiver, moving to push himself up and realising that was a drastically bad idea from the pain.] Shit- that's raw. [He cringes, not really wanting to admit that he doesn't feel entirely confident in his ability to pull through.] I don't think a Sponge-Bob plaster is gonna fix this one, Detective Pyrope. And I was a day away from retirement, too. Tragic, the long arm of the law just inches too short. [He could keep going, and he wants to, but he feels dramatic.] Just gag me already before I die an embarrassment.

No, shut up. You're not allowed to die. [She doesn't care if he babbles. He can babble himself into a stupor as long as he doesn't bleed out on her.

Her hands hover uncertainly over him. The steps should be easy: clean the wound, patch the wound, apply pressure until the bleeding stops. But she doesn't have anything she needs. There's nothing "clean" within fifty miles of here. Even their own clothes, which she would gladly rip up for bandages, are filthy from several weeks of wear. Those won't do anything but spread infection.

There's nothing. Literally nothing that she can do, but she just can't accept that. It hurts too much. So she pulls off her sweater, turning it inside out and pressing it over the wound. It's as clean as anything is going to get. She smells the scent of cherry red blood seep into it almost immediately.]

Just stay focused on me. Do not drift off. Eye-closing and spacing out are strictly forbidden. I will confiscate your badge, Officer Strider.

I didn't know you made the rules. [He hums softly in mock thought.] I have a couple of questions for you about these murder arenas, then. [A pause.] I'll ask them later, though. Let me just focus on not bleeding.

[Part of him wants to be the voice of reason and point out how hopeless this is. He has no medkit and no disinfectant, the weapon hadn't exactly been clean. Who knows how many nasty park germs it had all over it, gross? And if he did pull through, he'd be weighing her down, getting an infection and unable to hold his own in a fight. It would be slow, painful and awkward. The more he thinks about it, the more he feels himself slipping. It's hard to keep his eyes open at this point and he definitely can't control the shivers now that the cold is setting in deep. The best part is that it's making him feel numb, not even pressure on the wound is hurting him now, but it's hard to breathe. His breathes are getting more and more shallow, but he manages to laugh.]

Never was one for following the rules, Detective. You can take my badge, but you'll never take my dignity. Not from a renegade guy like me with a head full of ideas and a body only half full of blood. [The talking is sort of keeping him awake, but he keeps slipping into closing his eyes. Going longer and longer each time without snapping them open.] Is there a draft in here?

Edited 2014-06-29 08:21 (UTC)

There's no draft. You're just... talking too much. Like usual.

[Yes, that is it. It certainly isn't because he's dying or anything. Except he is, and there's not a single thing she can do to stop it. In the silence between his words, she keeps turning her attention to the sky. Sniffing over her shoulder and listening for that all-too-important beeping noise of a parachute being dropped. There has to be one. Someone has to send them something, right?

Is she not working it enough? What do they want her to do, lean down and deliver a sweet kiss of life? Somehow she doesn't think that would go over well, and as much as she wants him to live, she's not going to fuck around with their feelings in order to do so. She's not adding salt to that wound.

But that means he's going to die. He's going to bleed out on this dirty, rust and decay covered floor. For her. She can't stand the unfairness of it.]

If your head is so full of ideas, one of those ideas should have been how to avoid getting stabbed. [Her eyes are stinging, but she's trying really hard to keep the tears at bay.] I thought you didn't play the Hero. Wasn't your thing. What happened to that?

Oh. [That's about all he can verbalise at this particular moment. There's this sudden sinking feeling, like that moment when you miss the last stair and you don't know if you'll make it. All of a sudden he's terrified of dying and it's far too late to do anything about it.

So, despite not wanting to answer that question, he welcomes the opportunity to keep rambling. It's getting harder to be witty when everything is starting to feel foggy and faint, but he suddenly feels like now might be the time to say all of the important things and answer the important questions.]

I'm not a hero, I just.. [He isn't pausing for dramatics here, he's just lost the plot a little.] Didn't want you to die and have it be my fault. You already have years of shit to hold over me. [And after all of those words, he's definitely fading faster. God, he wastes his breath on the worst things.

There's a long pause before he pipes up again, much quieter than before. It's hard to say if it's because he's weak or because he's a stubborn child who hates saying this shit.] I'm sorry for being an asshole. Before. It was a bad joke to ruin a friendship over. [He presses his lips together for a moment.] I think we're even now. [He observes, and it's almost like he fell asleep talking at a slumber party. There's a sense of relief when he feels himself slip those last few inches, the dread is almost entirely gone before he stops feeling anything. That, my friend, is one dead Dave.]

[Didn't want her to die, he says. Didn't want it to be his fault, he says. They're even now, he says. None of it makes any sense. She wants to shout at him that dying for her isn't any better than letting her die. It just means that she has to live with the choice, and he doesn't. It's not fair.

He goes still, and the cannon sounds loud enough to make her jump. Her heart lurches in fear.] Dave? Dave! [She shakes him--once lightly and then again a little harder when he doesn't respond. He still doesn't move.

A sickness drops into her stomach, and the burning flares up in her eyes. She doesn't try to hold it back this time. She just buries her face in her folded arms, resting over Dave's still chest. Fuck anyone who might be watching. She lets herself cry, and she doesn't care. She doesn't have enough fucks left to keep up some stupid facade of emotionlessness.

Bitterly, she wonders what it would be like to be out of these arenas early. To be the one dying instead of the one left behind with blood on her hands and this heavy feeling in her chest. It might be nice once in a while. Selfish, but nice.

Eventually, Terezi lifts her head again, rubbing the tears off of her face. She probably looks like a wreck, but she couldn't care less. She picks up her sweater, uncrumpling it and tying it around her waist. It's still damp with blood, but whatever. It'll dry. For a moment, she wonders if she should take something of his to keep... Just in case. Her hands rest on his shades briefly--what must have been his token. But she draws them back again empty-handed. He'll be back in the Capitol. He has to be. He's always so stupid about those shades... He'll be mad if she takes them.

Getting to her feet, Terezi squares her shoulders. Can't stick around forever... They won't collect the body if she's still here. Grabbing her bag, her scrap of metal, and any odds and ends left lying around; she sets off through the town again.]

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All the other kids with the slumped cake mix

[closed to Terezi]

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