It's Crowded and It's Cold In My Secret Life [Closed]

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

WHO| Alpha and Howard
WHAT| Howard blames Draco's death on bears.
WHEN| Second Week
WHERE| In an ice cave along the glacier.
WARNINGS/NOTES| Talk about death and murder, Alpha being a bastard.

By the time he finds the relative safety of their icy cave, Howard's exhausted and covered with altogether too many bodily fluids, blood being the most noticeable. Like the tears and the snot, its frozen all over the lower half of his face and the front of his parka, but unlike last time it can't possibly all be his. The red spray is all over his forearms and hands, too, as well as around his thighs where he tried to wipe the offending matter away in vain. His eyes are pink and swollen from crying.

He dumps his loot at the front of the cave: a mangled, equally blood-stained sleeping bag, a harpoon, two cans of food, ten feet of fishing line, an empty plastic quart, and Draco Malfoy's clothing, which bears clear evidence of the stabbings. Along with that is most of Eponine's clothing as well, although that's all clean. Maybe he'll switch into her parka later, when the torn and messed one he's in gets to be too much of a giveaway and a liability.

As if he doesn't want to deal with that right now, he finds the part of the cave furthest away from the bounty and curls up into a ball with his gifted sleeping bag, staring at the wall.

"There. I found us some stuff," he says to Alpha. He pulls the sleeping bag tighter around himself; unlike Draco, he won't make the mistake of cocooning in it, and has unzipped it into a blanket.

Comments

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

In a way, it's comforting that Alpha is so brazen about what matters. It makes Howard feel less off-kilter about returning bloody and criminal, as if saying, yes, this is all part of the game, weapons and clothing are much more important than some British fuckhead's life.

Howard feels as if the walls of formality are peeling away between him and Alpha, and that what he's seeing now is closer to reality. Alpha's just someone else who values surviving, that thing Howard tells himself he prizes too, so they can be good allies in that way. Allies are important, moreso than friends.

"I didn't do it." This is clearly a lie, but it's one Howard's been telling himself for the last few hours. He's trying to get it to the point where he believes it - for a while, he did a good job convincing himself that it was an accident, that he wouldn't have actually done anything is Draco hadn't rebroken his nose, but it's not a comforting enough fable. It still makes him a murderer. "There's wild animals out here."

He scoots closer to the fire; the heat starts to melt the frozen gunk on his face, and as if realizing it's there for the first time he gingerly rubs it away. The pain from his nose radiates all the way up his sinuses and around his eye sockets.

"Where you been? You weren't here all day." Otherwise the fire likely would have been started earlier.

[dieinpajamas]

"Oh?" says Alpha with a raised eyebrow. He thinks of letting it go, letting Howard hold on to that fantasy, but Alpha decides quickly not to let lies become habit between the two of them. Well, not on Howard's end anyway. Besides, Alpha has a deep-seated grudge when it came to fantasies.

"That's interesting. I've only seen birds out there so far and, well, I've seen Hitchcock's The Birds--" --no you haven't you never have you just think you have--"--so I wouldn't be surprised if they turned out to be vicious little bastards, but I'm curious as to how they managed to hold the knife."

He watches out of the corner of the eye as Howard moves to the fire, the gestures at his own face. "You've got a little something," he says, and turns back to rummaging through the pile. "Went out for some fresh air. Made some new friends, put on a show or two for our lovely viewers," he took a moment to straighten and give a sardonic bow aimed in no direction in particular. "Not quite as productive as you, it seems, but I do like to keep busy."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"There's bears out here. They have claws." Howard looks irritated at having Alpha puncture his fiction, and as such is being stubborn as much out of spite as he is to cope. He can't seem to get the sound of Draco suffocating in blood out of his head. "Anyway, it'll all be on tape once we get out of here."

He scrubs at his upper lip again, licking and wiping away the blood.

"What kind of show?" Howard's afraid to know, honestly. For as much as he's becoming comfortable in this alliance he's realizing the darkness, as well. Alpha isn't like him, someone who kills out of carelessness, or mercy, or desperation. Howard tells himself that at the very least he's still a man of his word, although it doesn't occur to him that he really doesn't have any proof of that - or word that Alpha won't stab him in the night with the harpoon.

[dieinpajamas]

"Bears," repeats Alpha, torn between being annoyed or impressed by the sheer audacity of the lie. "Now those, I have not seen. A shame, since one could feed us both for the rest of the Arena, if necessary." He holds up the bloodier set of clothes speculatively. "Did the bear have a grudge?"

After examining it, he shrugs and tosses the bloody shirt towards Howard, to clean his face. Not like a little more blood and grime is going to affect it much. "The kind of show they want," he says, stacking the two cans and putting them aside. "We'll save those for emergency rations," he comments, and it's not a question. "If you're asking if I've killed anyone, than yes, I have. As much as you can call it that. It seems to me it's not really killing. Not when it's temporary."

He smiles, and for once it's not his usual cheerful grin, but wry and knowing and cynical. "It's right there in the name, you know. In the end, nothing that happens here can be called real. It's all just a game. Might as well have fun with it. Or look like we're having fun," he says the last part in a near inaudible murmur, as he passes Howard, having gathered up the now more organized pile to place in a safer spot.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Yeah, when I see a bear, my first thought it totally how I'm going to kill and eat it," he snaps, grabbing the shirt and gingerly wiping away the grime.

He wouldn't argue about keeping the food for an emergency anyway. There's no need to waste it, and Howard feels that more keenly than most people in this arena. Having starved once makes him compulsive about food, obsessed, exacting.

"It feels real," he says, more to the fire than to Alpha. It felt real when he died, sick and seizing and vomiting until someone had the mercy to put a knife through his chest. It felt real to watch in horror as Draco died by the wounds Howard inflicted with his own hands. "And you don't know if they're coming back."

He clings to that last statement Alpha made. He wants to believe Alpha's just being practical. Howard stabbed a boy to death and he can't imagine how sick someone would have to be to enjoy that.

[dieinpajamas]

"It should be," Alpha says mildly. He's had fun so far, mostly wiped the bad taste of his abysmal performance last time from his mouth, and so he feels up to sustaining his usual legendary levels of patience. Three months he spent watching that damn agent and his beloved Echo together--he can while away some time needling at Howard's lies. "It's a good instinct to have in a place like this. I figured you of all people knew the value of food."

Alpha sits down by the fire as well, once the loot is stowed away. Not directly across from Howard, so they're not staring each other in the face, and not too close beside him either. He feels that they're both the type to appreciate their personal bubbles, occasional allowances to not freeze to death aside.

"That just shows the quality of the game," says Alpha. "Realism is always the goal, until the fantasy--the game, I mean, is so damn real you don't need actual reality anymore." He frowns at the fire. He was starting to veer off-topic there. "By which I mean, just because it's painful doesn't mean it's real. You have to hold on too that, if you act like every time you die in here you're actually dying, you'll go mad. And holding a grudge for something that happens in the Arena, well that's just bad sportsmanship.

"As for not coming back...that's up to them," he waves a hand around them, indicating the invisible but always, in their way, present Gamemakers. "If you kill someone in here and the people who have the power don't bring him back, is the death your fault or their's? Not to mention the part where if you didn't go along with things they'd leave you cold on the slab yourself."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard flinches. He knows his issues with food are not the norm here, but are a glaring weakness that can be exploited. He finishes wiping his face and sets the shirt aside, tamping down the urge to throw it in the fire. No need to waste good cloth.

He knows Alpha's right. Everything he's saying makes sense, so much sense that it's like syrup. He wants to believe, it's so tempting to just believe it. It's like it would just erase the blood on his hands and down his front.

He doesn't want to be a killer. Not really. It matters to him that he has that he can say about himself, at least, even if it doesn't matter as much as getting brought back each round.

He blinks back the tears that are prickling around his eyes again. He doesn't want to show any more weakness.

"Why do you want to win?" he asks. Because he can't argue with that perfect, seductive logic, but he can secondguess the motives behind it.

[dieinpajamas]

Alpha is taking in with interest Howard's flinch when the question comes up and it surprises him. Surprises him enough that he doesn't make a quip, doesn't say something clever or pithy, or even give the stock but technically true answer of wanting to get out, wanting to go home. He gives it some thought.

"I don't like being used," he says, finally, and for once it is the absolute truth. "Being a plaything for someone else's amusement. I've been in that situation before and I didn't much enjoy it." Except he did, damn the Dollhouse, damn the chair. He enjoyed every minute of it because they programmed enjoyment into him.

He blinks and puts on an easy grin. "I prefer the nightlife in the Capitol to here anyway," he says, and knows that's what they'll put on the screens, everything else carefully censored. "How about you?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard thinks on that for a moment, trying to decide if he thinks Alpha's being forthright. It sounds like it, and it makes sense. Howard doesn't really understand the indignation, but he's long given up on the idea of having any control of his life. He's resigned himself to knowing that the powers that be are never going to care about his input.

But it would explain a lot about Alpha.

Howard thinks about his own reasons. He doesn't want to go home; he has no home worth going back to. He doesn't even want to leave the arena, honestly. He finds it harder to get along in the Capitol, despite all the discomforts here. He has become a creature of dire circumstance who can't just be plopped back into a normal world and expected to get along. Here, he's scared but focused, practical, effective, even.

In the Capitol, he's a fucked-up kid who eats until he pukes and can't get to sleep even in the safety of his bed.

"I want security, and I want to have it long enough to get used to it again. I'm sick of being afraid for my life every minute."

[dieinpajamas]

Alpha nods thoughtfully. "Reasonable," he says, and thinks that neither of them are likely to get what they really want regardless of if they win or not. Victor or Tribute, Alpha will be under the thumb of Capitol and it's Gamemakers so long as he's trapped in this damn place, and they've already shown they're just as willing to dispose, in one way or another, of their Victors should they prove...unmarketable.

"What you need, my boy," Alpha continues, adopting a lofty lecturing tone that's just ridiculous enough that it's obvious that's on purpose, meant to seem like an awkward way to break the tension of a suddenly serious moment. And all this truthfulness is making him itch. "What you need is some muscle, some fight training, and tactical training for that matter. You may not win right away, random chance always a factor, but knowing that you're stronger and smarter than the competition can give you a nice secure feeling. So I hear."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard snorts, then regrets it as he just ends up with more semi-frozen blood slush coming out his nose. "And while I'm at it, I'll go live with monks and gain eleven inches and seventy pounds. Unless I learn how to shoot lasers out my eyes I'm always going to have the short end of the stick in combat."

Maybe the next arena will be filled with toddlers and old people, he thinks. Then he'll stand a decent chance. If the Games were Pokemon he'd be Meowth.

It's different for Alpha, he thinks. Alpha doesn't have the look of someone who's always been a runt. He knows that Alpha has a point, and that at least some self-defense is better than none, but he also knows no amount of weight-lifting and martial arts is going to make him feel safe around others.

"What I have really going for me is that I can outlast people. But that's going to give me less and less returns as we do more and more games. People are going to pick up on how to survive in the wild." He raises an eyebrow. "Why, you offering lessons?"

[dieinpajamas]

"You work with what you've got," Alpha says with a shrug. "There's no sense in complaining about being too small--although with the food at the Capitol, putting on weight isn't the problem. Height you're pretty much stuck with, but sometimes shorter is better." Says the six foot plus man. "Makes a smaller target anyway."

He warms his hands over the fire and smirks. "I'm not exactly the Mr. Miyagi type. You are right in that your natural scrappiness will only take you so far, but while they're picking up survival skills you'll be picking up fighting techniques. You may have a natural talent," he says, meaning Howard's willingness to kill more than his actual prowess in the killing. He glances back at the loot Howard dragged in.

"Or maybe just a natural affinity for bears."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I can be vicious, if I have to be. I just don't like having to be." But in terms of playing dirty, Howard will be the first in line to go for the eyes, go for the throat.

But because he doesn't like admit that beyond the abstract, he says, "I got lucky. I found bodies before they were collected, and I just took stuff off them."

He sticks to his lie. It's more comforting than recalling the feeling of his knife sinking through fluffy sleeping bag into muscle, into bone. With that, he bundles himself up slightly in his sleeping bag, although he leaves his arm free. He lays on his side. "You take watch. I need sleep."

[dieinpajamas]

"Being what you have to be is what this is all about," says Alpha, eyes firmly on the fire. He thinks for a moment that he's surprised that someone with such a well-evolved survival instinct would thinking lying to him was a good idea, before he remembers that not even the Tributes who'd fallen his knife really knew what he was capable of.

"Maybe you'll win on luck then," he says absently as Howard moves to a sleeping position, wonders if Howard's luck runs out tonight. Probably not. Alpha still needs something to pass the time, in between stalking hapless victims across the tundra. He lets Howard sleep.