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thearena2015-03-08 10:09 pm
To the loved ones we lost along the way...
What| Luke saves Nick from Thor -- but it only gets messier from there.
Where| Out there
When| Week 6
WARNINGS| Blood, language, DEATH. More will be added if applicable.
First were the slabs of rock flaking off the mountain side, razing everything in their path as they shuddered their way down, blocking the caves - their shelter - under impenetrable layers of ice and rock and snow. Then meteors came hurtling down like shells, splintering trees and rocking the ground under their feet and blowing smouldering chunks out of the dirt. Now, the trial by fire.
Nothing’s changed. Safety is nowhere. Whether here or back home, safety is an illusion they chase tirelessly and they get to hold onto for brief moments at a time before something else shatters that fragile sense of security and they find themselves displaced and disoriented and empty inside. It’s too dangerous to feel remotely comfortable, least of all in a place where all eyes were turned on them, rapt and hungry, and torturing tributes is the height of entertainment.
He feels the tickling-hot trickle of blood under his windbreaker and knows some half-scabbed gash has tore itself open – but he keeps moving, heavy backpack bouncing against him and his vision jarred with every hurried footfall, his breath coming hard and fast. The fire won’t wait. It chases him to the river with purposeful persistence and forces him in, cool water splashing him and soaking his boots and pant legs. Half of him expects it to find a way to follow – he wouldn’t put it past the Gamemakers to try. But panting and miserably cold from the waist down, he’s offered a moment of respite. A small mercy that’ll inevitably come at a price; he knows it.
Daryl knew it too.
Their numbers are dropping and Luke hasn’t seen hide or hair of Clem or Nick in hours. But he’s not giving up, not going down quiet and easy. Not making himself look like prey. He unsheathes his machete, shooting a wary look left and right under his brows because something or someone is always lying in wait.
That’s when he sees them a little ways off in a clearing, his thoughts screeching to a halt. Sees someone drawing one powerful arm back -- and Nick there, the point of a spear aimed squarely at him. Then it's slicing through the air, a metal blur, and Luke's half-stumbling half-thrashing his way out of the river, nearly losing his footing when his boots touch dry, charred dirt and he breaks into a sprint, biting down on a shout pressing hot at his throat from the inside. Maybe the tribute would be too focused on Nick to see him coming.
But if he did, he'd deal with then.
no subject
It's making him frantic, it's making him want to get this over with faster. Everyone is a target and he barely needs to consider it anymore. He sees Nick and he feels nothing, no fear or compassion. He's just there and he needs to.. Well. He needs to not be there anymore.
Thor is a warrior of a few thousand years, a quiet approach is easy for him and his arm is strong. He's confident it will all be over with a single throw, but Nick just barely steps to the side and the spear does little more than slice his shoulder and plant into the ground. Thor lets out a growl of frustration, attention focused on Nick as he springs forward with his hunting knife in hand.
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But it's the immediate danger that poses a distraction from that part of his mind. First it was the fire, but now there's a man who is fucked up enough to prefer chasing Nick down than worry about the flames. He clutches his shoulder, though it had been under worse conditions before, the gesture brings back memories all too familiar that just adds to the pain. If he hadn't been facing Thor to see the spear coming, it'd have gone right through him. It throws him off balance; causing him to drop one of his knives that he had taken out the second he had seen Thor approach him earlier.
He's still got the other knife that Jane had given him and a pair of legs to run with. He's opting for the latter now, scrambling up to make a sprint for it, ignoring that voice in his head that's telling him that he should just give up and let those who are meant to win, win.
no subject
Every stride brings Luke closer to him and the reality of the situation into focus detail by detail, an anxious bassline throbbing in his gut. One that spikes when he realizes the stranger is larger than the both of them, built tall and solid like a brick wall with fists made for splintering bone and savagely bludgeoning bodies into the ground. Nick whirls around and makes a break for it and Luke can almost feel the fear buzzing through him because his own body crackles with it. But there's more that rises to the surface and shows in his face, his fierce, sweat-stung eyes unblinking. A sharp-edged readiness, a dangerous, animal determination to protect his family from the forces forever trying to rip them - pieces of him - out of his life.
Maybe, just maybe, he could buy Nick some time. He had to try.
The moment he’s in range his muscles uncock and he throws himself low at Thor’s legs in the hopes of slamming into him and unbalancing him with his weight and momentum -- if he can't take him down outright.
no subject
His own determination blinds him to Luke's approach, so the surprise is enough to have him crashing to the ground like the world's most dramatic bag of potatoes. He flashes a dangerous glance at Nick in the distance before he starts to kick at Luke and attempt to push himself upward. His knife is going to be aiming artlessly at whatever he can find, even if there's a high chance he won't hit anything with his jilted perception.
Thor growls, and suddenly Nick is of no importance. They are both as meaningless to him as each other, but Luke has the good fortune of winning his attention by pissing him off.
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So he skids to a stop, panting heavily as the exhaustion makes itself known for him. His eyes feel dry from all the running but he ignores both it and the sting he's feeling from his shoulders, turning to look at the direction where he came. Thor's on the ground dread fills him when he realizes why.
Dammit, Luke.
With a grunt, he ignores the dizzy spell hitting him as he makes a beeline back towards the other two. He sees Thor trying to find Luke with his knife and panic strikes him as he fears the worst happening. No way Luke is going to die on his account.
"HEY! Asshole!"
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Thor couldn’t kill them if he couldn’t catch them.
But it’s not so simple. It rarely is, and Luke knows it the moment Thor’s foot slams into his ribs and brings his blade to a staggering halt mid-thrust. He body snaps backwards, starbursts of light exploding behind his eyes – and then he’s down, down and forcing air back into his aching lungs with short, starved gulps. Dizzily, he scrambles into a crouch, his body humming like a hard-struck tuning fork. More adrenaline's flooding his bloodstream, the ozone tang of it sharp in his mouth.
But it can't prepare him for the shout that shatters his focus or the sight of Nick rushing towards them from the blurry edge of his vision. “Nick, no!!” It comes out strangled and wrong, desperation in his eyes. "Stop!"
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He flashes Luke a wary look, but he's as quick as he can be in his movements. He sends a hard kick to Nick's ribs, reaching down to wrench up his shirt only to slam him back down on the ground. He repeats this movement as best he can until he can only assume he's rendered Nick unconscious, aware that Luke is probably back on the approach.
Should he launch at him, Thor will aim a hard kick to his gut in an attempt to send him falling backward. His knife is still clutched tightly in his hand as he takes his turn to approach Luke.
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Unfortunately, the stab he attempts is ill-timed and Thor's kick gets to him first. With the wind knocked out of him, he drops the knife and barely manages to clutch at Thor's wrist before being thrown to the ground. His mind screams at his body to get up but the dizzy spell that never left completely takes over and the last thing Nick sees is the sky as dark spots cover up his vision.
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It wasn't meant to be like this.
They were supposed to be tearing across the clearing and through the woods in search of Clem, keeping each other in their blurred, tear-stung vision, heavy footfalls in rhythm. But Nick's being thrashed against the ground, ragdolling in Thor's grip, and something more powerful and more vicious than terror grips him by the throat and rips a shout out of him, every muscle in him quiveringly bunched and straining against the reckless animal impulse to lunge at Thor - and into that knife he turns on him.
By some miracle Nick's alive, a slow, soft puff of breath rising into the air. But all Luke can feel is that throbbing, anxious fury. There's no knowing what shape Nick’s in after being hammered into the ground and a dozen terrible possibilities flash through his mind. Whiplash. Fractured skull. Brain injury. No hope here of hauling him up across his shoulders and escaping with their lives. There’s no choice. He can’t – won’t – leave Nick behind.
Luke sinks into a fighter’s crouch, his machete out in front of him. Backing up as Thor advances. But there's no give in his eyes, no give in his will. The tendons in his arms flex and unflex under his skin, a mass of live-wire nerves seething in his belly. Why Thor hadn’t gone for the kill is beyond him, but damn if he’d let him try.
“It doesn't have to be like this!” Luke says through his teeth. Edging back still, luring him away from Nick’s unconscious body. “You walk away... an' this ends here! It’s done!”
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Nick's life is inconsequential now that he's no longer a threat. He will die soon enough, he will not survive long enough to meddle with Thor's mission nor his victory. Luke continues to be a problem, still full of energy and emotion and all manner of things that make Thor's skin crawls.
"It does." He says simply, hunting knife tight in his hand as it circles. "The only end is death." He clarifies, and he darts forward with impressive speed. His knife isn't a fair match to a machete, so he aims to knock Luke off his feet with the muscle and weight he holds to his advantage.
FINISH HIM /Mortal Kombat voice
Adrenaline-jacked, his body like a tightly coiled spring, Luke’s ready before he knows it. By the time his brain lights up, his fast-twitch muscles have already uncocked and he's dodging to the side. Thor's body only clips his but he stumbles, whirling around to face his attacker and digging his heels into squelching dirt. Feeling Thor's eyes on him like cold steel pressed to his throat.
"Get back!" Luke snarls as they circle and eye each other like hungry wolves. But all roads lead to the same end.
There's a time for words and it isn't when their blades snap out, minutes slipping away like seconds as they stab and feint and swing at each other in a dizzying whirlwind of whip-crack reflexes, getting vicious, desperate kicks and elbow-strikes in edgewise. Flesh and fabric tears and Luke feels a few flecks of his own blood hit his cheek when Thor’s knife arcs for him and narrowly misses his jaw. When they break away it’s only briefly. To attempt to predict the next move while glaring at each other through sweat-stung eyes.
A small flock of birds circle them, watching, waiting.
Luke shifts his weight, huffing through his teeth and bleeding from more cuts than adrenaline allows him to feel. His arms are on fire. They’ve been gouged at and sliced open guarding more than a few attacks meant for his throat and chest, and that his taut, piano-wire tendons haven’t been severed in both arms is nothing short of a miracle.
But it has been a long time since Luke has placed any measure of his faith in miracles. And the scream that rips through the air and hits a pitch that sticks like a quill into his brain chases any hope of those days ever returning.
It's Clementine.
He starts like a man shaken out of a deep dream, wide-eyed and disoriented, a fresh surge of blood and adrenaline and white-hot fear rushing to his head. The machete grows heavy in his numbed grip.
fuckfuckfuck
A different animal instinct from the one that keeps him fighting for survival with everything he has suddenly hijacks control and he jerks his head over his shoulder, eyes desperate, searching. It’s not the reunion he'd have ever hoped for. And it's too late to realize there’s no one there.
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As such, the scream means nothing to him, but it means something to Luke. The distraction is clear in his expression and he seals the deal when he turns his gaze away from Thor. He won't miss his chance, he launches into the other man's space and drives his knife into his gut as fast as he can. He wastes no time, pulling the knife out only to plunge it in and out again in a fast and furious attempt to end this fight once and for all.
He'll give Luke a shove back once he's done, wanting him out of range again.
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But the knife is when he twists his head around and it slams into him, the side of Thor’s fist jammed up against his body. He stares at it with blank, desperate eyes, his mouth open, useless. It’s a glowing poker shoved deep into his guts, churning them, and he screams helplessly, feeling his muscles go into spasms around it. Then, with a twisted sense of mercy, the knife rips out of him wet and punches in somewhere else. Up and in through flesh and bone into spongy lung-meat and it hurts so bad he goes blind, his scream choking up and dying with a gurgle somewhere in his throat.
He fucked up.
The knife saws its way out tooth by tooth and a hard push sends him staggering back before he can stab at Thor, slipping on a patch of dirty slush. He hits the ground bonelessly, pain crashing over him and pulling him under, his ears ringing shrilly. Almost drowning out the screeching jabberjay hovering on the edges of his awareness.
He fucked up.
He's drenched in shock-sweat, more pouring down his sides as he wheezes and suddenly struggles to push up onto an elbow, glazed-eyed and wobbly like an anesthetized animal that doesn't know any better than to keep trying and trying. And clutching fiercely at his stomach - blood threading through his fingers - he looks up at Thor for just the briefest moment. Not pleading -- but still clinging, defiant, to life he's never stopped fighting for before he slumps back into the slush.
Later.../Spongebob narrator voice
Or an even worse reality TV show, which is what the Games had always been to him. Instead of waking up to lodging his arm through a fence or on an examination table, he realizes that he's still in the arena. He chokes out a cough and immediately wished that he held it in. For whatever reason, Thor had left him alone, although not without leaving him the biggest migraine of his life...and possibly a concussion. His eyes slowly open to see a blurred vision of the forest burning in the distance.
A couple of those birds fly over his head, letting out warbles of cries of a frightened girl crying for her dad and the scream of his uncle, who never sounded so scared in his life. He grits his teeth at them but that's as far as his defiance goes. The noise carve themselves into his already broken mind and he lets them stay there, not caring or questioning how the Gamemakers are doing this to him anymore. He's long since come to accept that shit like this will always keep happening.
Slowly, doing his best to ignore the dizziness, he props his body up with his elbows to notice that there isn't a single hole in his body aside from the near gash on his shoulder. He regains his bearings somewhat, but his face soon falls when he sees Luke's body not far from him, in a state far worse than his own. Nick bites his lips to keep himself from shouting, but as he pulls himself and ambles closer, a small whimper escapes him, though overlapped by the jabberjays.
"...Luke?"
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The voice drifts through his mind, dim and wooly, belonging to a moment in time he can’t place, a memory he can’t bring into focus. Blood leaks quietly into the snow.
He doesn’t remember falling.
He feels like he’s lain here for a long time snatching at every breath, at every slipping second with white-knuckled hands. There’s air all around him, which is the funny part. Air everywhere, choked down hungrily into his blood-gorged lungs. But it’s never enough.
The jabberjays make dizzying circles overhead like vultures, every scream of terror from their throats - the screams of those loved and those lost, the weary survivors he had lead out of the cabin to chase the illusion of finding safety somewhere for the long-term – like a gut-stab. Every scream twisting home the fact that he’d keep trying, fighting and thrashing against the tide, and only keep failing to save what little he had left in the world. Everyone dies some day. Here he’s forced to look his people in the eye when they come back and realize just how inadequate and useless sorries really are. But no one ever blames him. It’s not his fault, even when it is.
His jaw winds tighter and he squeezes his eyes shut in defiance; then, in an effort to escape the sounds, his head full and throbbing like a second heart, herky-jerky breaths shivering through his lips. A keening whine escapes him as he rolls onto his belly and plants his hands, shudderingly pushing himself up. Nick -- he needs to see Nick, needs to know if he’s okay even though he knows he isn’t. No one can be in this place.
A wave of pain rips through him and his body gives out, dropping back into the swampy puddle of red slush. It soaks his windbreaker and his skin and his bones; it burns. Everything burns, even while he’s drowning inside himself. Though somehow, even above the mocking cry of jabberjays and the ringing of his ears, he can still hear someone calling. A dream-like, broken plea made of his name. He wants to move but he can’t, he can't, wheezing in restless agony because he doesn’t know how to give up. He's not allowed to, not with so much left unfinished.
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Gritting his teeth to ignore everything from the screams of the jabberjays and that of his own body, he pushes his legs to quickly run over towards Luke. He falls over once, causing his vision to appear like ripples but he fights it, he tries to focus on making his way over to the one clear image ahead of him before falling to his knees at Luke's side.
There's blood everywhere and the jabberjays continue to mock them with the familiar cries of loved ones. Just when he thought there couldn't have been more ways for the Gamemakers to break him down worse, they find a way to outdo themselves. Despite that though, he feels it in his aching bones that this was his fault. He could've been faster or stronger even just enough to prevent this from happening but he wasn't. He wasn't strong enough back at home and he's reminded that he's no better here.
He can't ask Luke to tell him that things will be okay because they both know that it's not. It hasn't been for a very, very long time. Tired, shaking hands reach over to gently turn Luke over to face him. He's still here, he's still Luke....if barely. The look of devastation on Nick is one that knows what's to follow.
It doesn't take a bite from a lurker for someone to turn.
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Someone’s hand curls around his shoulder. And then it’s turning him whether he wants it to or not, gentle but determined, and all he can do is clamp his teeth down on a half-scream and moan through his nose, going white, his body heavy, quiveringly useless. The sun knifes into his eyes and he squints against it, blinking slowly at the shimmery blur of sky above him. Nick’s there, looking back. Still alive.
The hitching rise and fall of his chest quickens desperately as he stares, nostrils flaring.
“...fuck--" Luke gasps out weakly before spitting up a gob of bright, foamy blood, red staining his teeth and lips and chin. More crawls from the corner of his mouth. He slaps a blood-slick hand over a slit in his windbreaker, fingers digging stiffly. But there’re too many –-
“Y’can’t… can't stay here. S’too dangerous...” His head lolls to one side. He sees the backpack he had shrugged off and dropped while running at Thor and knows he needs to remind Nick. Needs to push him to notice it before grief sucked him under. He looks back to Nick, searching his face with feverishly bright eyes. Begging. "Take that - nngh - that bag with you 'fore the... fire comes back."
Hope this is ok. Lemme know if you want any changes.
He remembers turning to look at Luke, who had fallen asleep on the chair from keeping an eye on him. From how easily he seemed to move on and keep going with things, Nick wasn't surprised (and somewhat jealous) that his friend was able to sleep. Despite the constant belief that Luke will outlive him, the thought that here could be a day when Luke ends up dead and gone first remained in the back of his mind too. It was easy for Nick then, enveloped by leftover grief and self-directed anger, to decide that he was no longer going to hesitate to put down anyone who ended up becoming a threat to the rest of the group. He willed himself with what willpower he had left to leave no room in his heart to debate on it.
His own thoughts were too loud for him to sleep at all that night.
He doesn't take his eyes off Luke as he talks, but nods slowly at his worlds while remaining mostly still. It's surreal, so unlike the horror he experienced in watching Bill beat Luke senseless with the constant fear that the man would drive his point home with a bullet through his head. This is actually happening. Whatever preparation Nick thought he had is out of arm's reach right now and he knows it. It pisses him off.
"Why? Why did you fuckin' do that?" His voice begins to fade as he curls his fingers over the windbreaker hard enough for his knuckles to turn white under the gloves. "I was going to outrun him. You didn't..."
s'all good! likewise, lemme know if you want to do any changes
He doesn't snap at Nick. Doesn't have the strength to wrangle with the frustration that screams and thrashes in his chest, pulsing hot behind his fingers like the blood oozing between them. Doesn’t have the strength to focus it into a coherent argument. There's little room for his own anger while Nick's left to watch him die before his eyes like a beached animal, one futile gasp at a time.
"Same reason... you came runnin' back," he pants around a foamy mouthful of blood and bile, around the knot of his heart as it squeezes, aching, up into his throat. "You... you were in the clear, you coulda taken off... but y'didn't. You made that... choice, Nick."
His eyes flicker open, pain-drugged. Glassy and his pupils blown, less of him there than there was a moment ago and that there would be in a moment from now, the struggle for a second of life leeching the light out of them little by little.
"You're... my family." His voice is a soft, cracking thing, barely heard over the screeching jabberjays.
And that meant doing stupid shit for one another. It meant inviting oneself over with a box of chicken nuggets or a case of beer and settling down to watch a B-movie for a laugh when a friend was hurting. It meant being willing to be beaten or shot at or drowned - things that went against every animal instinct for self-preservation - for the smallest shred of a chance to keep someone else alive a little longer. Because more powerful than genes, than hard-wired instincts millions of years old, is that crazy thing that keeps one up at night, worrying. The thing that could suck all the appetite out of someone but sustain one, too. He doesn't need to call it love. It's already understood.
He fumbles with the machete strapped to his hip, shakily fitting the blade into its sheath before sliding it loose. Then he pulls Nick's blood-slimed hand from his chest and firmly presses the machete's jutting hilt into it, curling Nick’s fingers over it. Clasping them stiffly into a fist and giving it a squeeze. It might be the only way Nick'll take it.
Luke looks back for a long time, a pleading keenness in his gaze while he slides his hand back and lets it sink to his side. He nods breathlessly.
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They both could come back or end up getting separated for all they know. The only coherent desire Nick can grasp right now is for that blooded, tired dying face he's meeting would be well and smiling with reassuring confidence that they need to keep moving.
Luke and Pete were behind him after what happened with mom. Clem had been there for him when he gave her no reason to after losing Pete at the river. Luke was the one to pull Nick into his arms when they found him at his lowest. He had been there for him when others couldn't and had been one of the very few he had growing up that didn't make him feel judged.
There had been an unspoken understanding that with the way their world became, they had other matters to attend to. Open arms had to remain steady and closed and not every word of reassurance needed to be said as just "knowing" that it would have been said became the norm. Though Nick had initially struggled with that for the longest time before coming to accept that people change for the better or worse. He even had the terrible thought during one of his lows that Luke would leave them because they couldn't keep up.
The thought occurred a couple of times, but they had been fleeting. Still, it eats at him now despite quickly reaffirming otherwise, because everything Luke had done for him up to this point proved it wrong. They're family, Luke said. They've said this to one another many times before in light of doing favors or hearing one another out during a time of sadness. Nick doesn't know how to respond this time. He may have been the one on knees but all he feels right now is the weight of his grief pulling him down like he's drowning.
He blinks several times, only just barely realizing that Luke had taken his hand to give him the machete and his own eyes had been wet. He makes no move to dry them because his other hand moves to clap it over Luke's, knowing that he needs to take it but not wanting to pull away because of what's to come. At a loss for words, he hangs his head just low enough for them to see each other still, hands keeping a shaking grip on what could be his last anchor.
no subject
That's all they are now. Two scared kids on their own, looking helplessly to each other for some shred of hope, reassurance. This is how it ends.
Nick's fingers lock around his. Trembling, desperate. He can still feel the warmth of them, his skin tingling faintly at the familiarity of it. Nick reaching to yank him out of a ditch, the squelching mud almost sucking the shoes off his feet, or helping him up and out of the twisted wreckage of what was once been a new bike. Nick there when he'd stumble on the sidewalk after one too many whiskeys, his head spinning.
He might be slipping away but it's Nick that needs saving. He can see it in every haggard line etched around his eyes.
"Nnndon't…" Luke chokes out, his knuckles going white. It's not up for debate. Nick shouldn't get to give up when he's fought so hard to make it here. Not when Clem's still out there, counting on him. They're living for more than themselves -- that's the way it is now; that's the way it has been for a long time. He just has to keep finding ways and reasons to march onwards because life would never be any easier. Not like how it used to be, once upon a time.
"You keep goin'…" His throat jerks, fresh blood coating his lips. "Y’gon’… fff--find a way --"
The jabberjays seem quieter now, fading, and Nick is fading too, darkness closing in around him. But for one brief moment he’s at the very centre of Luke’s world, the focus of his all-consuming attention, nothing there to compete -- though not in the way Nick could have ever wanted to be.
"...please..." He mewls, his voice so small and anxious, his throat working.
He lets go.
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Nick lets his head hang low, knowing that there's not going to be enough time for him to process everything that just happened. As much as he told himself he knows he will see bad things happen to him and his friends, it does little to help him cope with it. He knows he needs to go. The pattern is coming back to him now, as the rules that they established are reiterated in his thoughts.
Reasons to not just leave him like this go beyond it being just dangerous. He doesn't need to think about the last arena to know that Luke doesn't want to come back a lurker. None of them do. He finally gets up to go over to grab the smaller, but sharper hunting knife that he had dropped earlier. He walks back to kneel down to position the weapon at the temple with one hand covering Luke's eyes. The knife shakes in his grip but Nick's expression remains still in contrast to moments ago, and stays that way even as he jams it in and doesn't blink when he pulls it away. He kneels there for a while before something wills him to get up, taking the machete with him. The air whipping through has his head feeling stuffed, and too numb to care about the jabberjays flying above.
He fully expects Clementine to be standing behind him to see this happening. He'd hear something said by that girl, whose words hold more weight to him than he'd like to admit, maybe something to encourage him to keep him going like last time. He's glad she's not here to have to see this, but knows that it also means that she's still out there and alone. He intends to find Clementine as that is all that's left to do now.
Before he sets off, he turns around to look at the body again, feelings mixed as to whether he'd want this to be the last time to see Luke or not.
He opts to not feeling anything at all, keeping his eyes forward as he walks to disappear into the woods, with nothing but the voices of the deceased above keeping him company.