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welcome to your office, settle down and take a seat
Who: Jeremy Fitzgerald, OTA
What: That care package is only confusing him further.
When: Beginning of week 2.
Where: Forest and surroundings.
Warnings: Mention of head injuries and various FNAF related grossness.
This is hardly what he expected the afterlife to be like.
He wasn't exactly religious or spiritual. He'd always figured that whatever the end of the line would be, he'd deal with it when he got there. Just because he's here a little earlier than he'd expected had nothing to do with his surprise upon finding out what awaited him after death was just more of it.
Kill or be killed is what he was told. But I'm already-- was what he wanted to answer with, but he was only shushed, told to try his best, and then he was out in the middle of it all. He'd stepped out into what could only be described as a warzone, bodies and blood scattered about and his only instrinct - once he could force himself to move - was just to run. Run, run, keep running, hope you don't pass out.
He has no idea how he made it this far, but he's just glad he's remained conscious. It hasn't really hit him yet, the seriousness of the situation he's in. As far as he's concerned ... well, he's still very, very dead. How much worse can it be to die again?
For a long time, Jeremy wasn't even aware of his surroundings. He just ran, and found someplace to hide whenever he heard a noise. It seemed to go well for the most part, and the forest he finds himself in now is certainly different than anything he'd ever known. It's near one of the quiet, shallow ponds that he decides to take a break, sitting down near the water's edge and breathing heavily from the journey. And then he takes out his findings from the odd little parachute that nearly knocked him in the head earlier in the day, keeping a water bottle by his side as he reads the note again.
"Keep moving ... sorry for-- for what ha-happened. Need help, find ... Luna, Sansa ... Firo, S-Sandy, Daryl, Kar...kat, Nick."
He reads it to himself again, before rolling his eyes, crumpling the paper in his fist and letting it fall to the side. "Fat load o'good names do m-- me now."
It doesn't help that the same hallucination has been following him around since day one, usually in the corner of his vision but sometimes - like now - right across the pond from him.
"God-- fuck off, already," Jeremy grumbles at the shadow, frustrated enough to flip his middle finger up at the damn thing as he rubs his scarred forehead with the other hand. What a headache this is. "Leave me alone."
What: That care package is only confusing him further.
When: Beginning of week 2.
Where: Forest and surroundings.
Warnings: Mention of head injuries and various FNAF related grossness.
This is hardly what he expected the afterlife to be like.
He wasn't exactly religious or spiritual. He'd always figured that whatever the end of the line would be, he'd deal with it when he got there. Just because he's here a little earlier than he'd expected had nothing to do with his surprise upon finding out what awaited him after death was just more of it.
Kill or be killed is what he was told. But I'm already-- was what he wanted to answer with, but he was only shushed, told to try his best, and then he was out in the middle of it all. He'd stepped out into what could only be described as a warzone, bodies and blood scattered about and his only instrinct - once he could force himself to move - was just to run. Run, run, keep running, hope you don't pass out.
He has no idea how he made it this far, but he's just glad he's remained conscious. It hasn't really hit him yet, the seriousness of the situation he's in. As far as he's concerned ... well, he's still very, very dead. How much worse can it be to die again?
For a long time, Jeremy wasn't even aware of his surroundings. He just ran, and found someplace to hide whenever he heard a noise. It seemed to go well for the most part, and the forest he finds himself in now is certainly different than anything he'd ever known. It's near one of the quiet, shallow ponds that he decides to take a break, sitting down near the water's edge and breathing heavily from the journey. And then he takes out his findings from the odd little parachute that nearly knocked him in the head earlier in the day, keeping a water bottle by his side as he reads the note again.
"Keep moving ... sorry for-- for what ha-happened. Need help, find ... Luna, Sansa ... Firo, S-Sandy, Daryl, Kar...kat, Nick."
He reads it to himself again, before rolling his eyes, crumpling the paper in his fist and letting it fall to the side. "Fat load o'good names do m-- me now."
It doesn't help that the same hallucination has been following him around since day one, usually in the corner of his vision but sometimes - like now - right across the pond from him.
"God-- fuck off, already," Jeremy grumbles at the shadow, frustrated enough to flip his middle finger up at the damn thing as he rubs his scarred forehead with the other hand. What a headache this is. "Leave me alone."
cw: brief description of animal death
"So where're you from?" he asks in an undertone, slanting a sidelong look at Jeremy. "What's your world like, what did you do?" While he'd barely seemed concerned with Jeremy's appearance before, he very deliberately takes it in now, without attempting to hide his scrutiny. His look is accessing in a passive, non-judgmental way.
Knowing more about him may or may not shed a little light on who the sponsor message was from, but that's only partially the reason Daryl's curious. Asking the Three Questions — standard procedure when bringing in anyone new to his group — out of context won't provide any useful information, since Jeremy's probably too recent an arrival to have killed any other Tributes at this point. Not to mention he hardly seems capable of it, though appearances can be deceiving...
So he'll have to try and figure the guy out the old fashioned way.
As luck would have it, there's a smallish rodent-like creature caught in the first snare, still alive, futilely struggling in the wire. Won't make much of a meal, but it's better than none. He kneels down and carefully frees it, carries it a short distance away and efficiently slits its throat with the ease of long practise, ensuring the animal won't suffer unnecessarily. After the initial spill of blood it quickly slows, and the struggling ceases with a final few twitches of a back leg. He ties the critter onto the length of rope hanging at his waist and returns to reset the snare.
no subject
While he's not exactly one for casual conversation, Jeremy supposes it's something to pass the time for now. But his home world is hardly a fascinating topic, and his life back there isn't exactly the most exciting.
His death, on the other hand ...
"It's ... not much," Jeremy says quietly with a shrug of his shoulders. He doesn't carry himself with the most confidence, arms folded over his chest and his gaze cast down at his feet more often than not. Hardly a prime example of an ideal tribute. "Normal, I guess. I-I worked at ... a rest-- restaurant. Kid-friendly place ... robot animals."
He notices Daryl's giving him a look over, so he gestures to the darkened, ugly scars decorating his forehead. He doesn't exactly want to go into full detail about it, since recalling the incident in full was difficult; he didn't remember everything that happened, and he was trying to avoid freaking out as much as possible. "Got a-attacked by one of them ... I died, n-now I'm here."
Once they reach the snares, it's as good a time as any to take a break. He has no idea how to set traps like that, and he especially has no idea what the creature caught in the first one is supposed to be, but a new world like this is bound to have weird new wildlife. He doesn't want to watch Daryl finish it off either, so he turns away to look at the trees surrounding them instead. The shadow from before is back, distant among the trees and staring back at him, but something about it seems ... different than usual. It doesn't normally move like that.
"Do you ... see that?" he asks Daryl just as quietly, pointing a hand towards the shadow. Best to confirm if it's just in his head or not.
no subject
There's also something vaguely familiar about the story.
He follows where Jeremy gestures to, and obligingly watches the trees for several long moments, half-wondering if the other man's going to pull the oldest misdirection trick in the book on him. Get him to look away before making a break for it. Of course, it isn't as though he's forcing Jeremy to accompany him, so if he wants to take off like a spooked rabbit, so be it.
Except he doesn't take off. And is apparently truly convinced there's something lurking over yonder. Looking back at him, Daryl shakes his head.
"M'not seein' whatever it is you are," he says, choosing his words with some care as he finishes up with the snare. "But that don't necessarily mean it isn't there. Lotta weird shit happens here, n'pretty much all of it's designed to kill you, in my experience." Realising what he said couldn't have been all that comforting, he adds, "Safety in numbers. Stick close, it might let you be."
Standing, he cocks his head slightly and appears to be listening intently to something. But it isn't what he's hearing that has him on alert — it's what he's not hearing. The surrounding woods have fallen eerily silent. Might be nothing, could be the Gamemakers screwing with them for entertainment, but he isn't taking any chances. Wordlessly motioning for Jeremy to follow, he veers off into the underbrush, detouring from his planned route — being unpredictable nearly always pays off in these situations, he's found. He maintains a quick pace until he feels they've put enough distance between them and whatever might've been stalking them, then gradually slows as the ambient sounds of the woods return, turning his mind back to their prior conversation.
"Waiter or chef?" he guesses, glancing back at Jeremy with mild curiosity. A corner of his mouth curls upward in a lopsided smirk. "Host? You got the face for it." His tone's light; it's meant as a compliment.
no subject
Knowing that it isn't an actual beast waiting for the opportune moment to pounce helps, but the feeling doesn't last long since Daryl's suddenly quiet and gesturing for him to follow off the path. Safety in numbers, sure, but safety from what? What's chasing after them now?
Whatever it could be, sticking around to find out isn't an option. Jeremy tries his best to keep up, but he's not as fast and his pounding headache makes it difficult to focus. He pauses to brace himself against the nearest tree every once in a while, waiting to regain his balance before moving forward again. He wouldn't be surprised if Daryl ends up taking the opportunity to leave him behind after all, but there's a part of him that's glad he's waiting for him to catch up.
Daryl knows the place better and has the skills, and with his name in that note, Jeremy figures it's okay to trust him when he determines the situation to be safe. But he is tired, so he is going to take a seat in the grass for a minute if allowed, just to catch his breath. And to turn a light shade of red with that last comment made.
That ... seems to have come out of nowhere, and Jeremy's going to shrug it off, rubbing the back of his neck. Weird.
"Security," he mumbles instead. "I worked ... n-night shifts. By my-- myself."
Hey, at least that shadow's gone now.
no subject
Belatedly, it occurs to him that his prior comment might've been taken the wrong way. "...Sorry. Wasn't tryin' to embarrass you," he apologises, awkwardly looking away and peering up at the sky instead. "I know a guy here who worked at a joint with those creepy robotic animals too. Never thought they were so common. Maybe they just ain't common in Georgia." Not that he'd rightly know, beyond his vague memories of commercials about pizzerias with animatronics; the late Dixons were not the type of people to be found in family restaurants. His childhood had been characterised by abuse and neglect, not pizza parties.
The mystery of their stalker is eventually revealed in a flurry of movement overhead; large, bat-like wings snap out as a screeching dragon drifts above the canopy, barbed tail whipping in annoyance over having lost its prey. It soon disappears into the distance, flying away to continue its hunt elsewhere. Daryl drops his gaze back to Jeremy, looking at him with raised eyebrows but saying nothing for a long moment.
Once he's sure the threat's passed, he asks, "What'd you do, as a security guard?"
no subject
Oh well. More interesting of note is the fact that Daryl knows someone from a similar place. Jeremy can't imagine why there'd be more restaurants with murderous animatronic creatures in the world, but he does know that people here come from all sorts of different places. But it really is such a similarity, and with the anonymous note from earlier in mind too, he can't help but wonder. He thinks, maybe he should ask ...
But that's quickly interrupted when the beast above them swoops down and away, and even though they're safe where they are, it's close enough for Jeremy to panic for the moment. He's lost all fondness for creepy creatures swooping down anywhere near his head, after all, so it's a reflex action now for him to grab both sides of his head and hunch over in the grass, his own terrified noises muffled by the screeching noises from the dragon overhead.
He's perfectly fine with waiting there like that until the damned thing's truly gone, but Daryl speaks again and snaps him back to reality. He's not in that pizzeria anymore, that grotesque animatronic isn't crawling on the ceiling, everything's fine. For now.
So now he can laugh at that question. "T-Try and ... not get killed, basically. Which-- o-obviously, I sucked at. That place ... it was a death tr--trap."
no subject
Were Daryl less experienced with these circumstances, contemplating the objective attractiveness of someone he barely met and how it might've affected business at their restaurant wouldn't have even crossed his mind. But Arenas are sort of old hat at this point and he's learned to enjoy these moments of humour when the opportunity presents itself, which isn't often. He hopes Jeremy never has cause to become similarly accustomed and desensitised to this shit.
Startled by Jeremy's reaction to the dragon, he carefully and quietly edges closer, keeping his body low against the ground to avoid casting a shadow or otherwise broadcasting his position to anything else that may be lurking overhead. With as much as he dislikes being touched himself, his first instinct has never been to reach out and offer physical comfort to others in these sorts of situations. Instead he sits as close as he's comfortable with, leaning down and speaking in a manner one would adopt when soothing a spooked animal.
"Hey, it's alright," he reassures, projecting a calmness he doesn't quite feel. "Dumb bastard didn't even know we're here. Lotta the monsters are like that — got all them nasty teeth and claws, but ain't too bright." It certainly isn't true of every muttation, considering some have seemed to possess fairly advanced intelligence and reasoning, but it's true enough in this instance. At least Jeremy's panic was of the quiet and still variety, and hadn't attracted any unwanted attention.
"Just seems unusual for a restaurant to have night guards," he says, sitting back up after a moment but reluctant to move away just yet. Besides, the perfect excuse to remain there is looking him right in the face. Small, round, whitish caps dot the grass around them, tucked so close to the ground as to be nearly invisible at first glance. "Why was it so dangerous? I mean, why were the robot critters attackin' you?" he wonders and plucks a couple of the mushrooms, eats one, and offers the other to Jeremy. Generally it's better to cook them first, but he knows this species doesn't contain toxins and a fire's too great of a risk at the moment. Maybe just before they leave the area he'll start one.
no subject
It's pitiful, really, but it does help. Large, screeching beasts swooping in from overhead wasn't something he could deal with very well. Even if it was a real, physical creature, and not one made of broken scrap metal and loud static. It was similar enough to warrant flashbacks of the day that particular bot got the better of him, and nearly bit his head clean off - the scars across his forehead and under his chin were evidence of that event, an obvious sign of trauma.
He feels pathetic, whenever something freaks him out like that. Sometimes it didn't take much at all. Even changing radio stations was difficult. But because that's all it could take, it made him feel utterly useless. He couldn't do much of anything without trying to figure out potential triggers that would set him off. And here, in the arenas, anything could happen.
But, having someone there with a word of reassurance, it helped. Even if it sometimes felt like an adult telling a child there were no monsters under the bed, easing a few of the worries off his mind was a step forward. Daryl seemed nice enough about it, not prying too much and just trying to help. Jeremy relaxes a little and nods his head quietly, and while mushrooms aren't his first dietary choice, there aren't too many options out here.
"Y-Yeah. You're tellin' me," he answers, shrugging his shoulders as he takes a small bite of the mushroom. Though he hesitates to answer the second question. It's true, people here were from all sorts of different worlds with many different experiences, but how is he supposed to explain an oddity like Freddy Fazbear's and all the mysteries and strangeness within like that? "You wouldn't ... believe me," he eventually settles on, another pause before adding: "... they w-were haunted."
It sounds ridiculous saying it out loud.
no subject
Glancing back down, he begins picking more of the little white capped mushrooms and collecting them in a pocket of his pack. This is precisely what he'd hoped they'd find on their trip to his camp, but he gathers them in an almost absent manner, as though he's just doing it to keep his hands occupied while his mind is elsewhere.
"So who's to say ghosts can't exist. I believe you," he says with all the sincerity of someone who's also experienced weird shit that nobody believes. Like the chupacabra that he still maintains he saw, despite even people from his own world — the aforementioned world overrun with reanimated corpses, no less — thinking him a liar. To hell with 'em. He knows what he saw.
"Who do you reckon was haunting 'em?" he asks after a few moments, uncertain whether he should drop that line of conversation but concerned and a bit curious despite himself. Hashing out past trauma has seemed to help some folks he's known, and he has to wonder whether Jeremy may be like that. It'll be simple enough to shift the topic back toward safer, less personal territory if the need arises — there's still so much more to arena survival than the basics that he's shared, after all, and he's hoping to give that advantage to Jeremy.
no subject
Now, that was definitely one of the strangest things he'd heard in his brief time in Panem so far. But ... he figures it must be possible. If everyone here is pulled in like he was, from different worlds and times, then it was certainly possible for one of those worlds to be one infested with zombies. Of course, that also meant that someone could come from a world with giant Godzilla-like monsters, too. It sure makes haunted animatronics not seem as bad.
"Y-Yeah," Jeremy answers, a point they can definitely agree on. As frightening and vengeful as the animatronics were, they'd have no reason to be if that one real monster hadn't put them in that position in the first place. They had every right to be angry and confused. "I hear you on th-that one."
He can only imagine what it must be like, though, wherever Daryl's from. Just because Jeremy's seen a few movies doesn't mean that's at all how it is, and he has no idea how he'd react in a situation like that. Dead people digging themselves out of their graves? Feasting on the living? Yeah, that's a lot worse than a serial child murderer. He's almost certain he'd be one of the first people to be eaten - unpleasant a thought as it is. Yeah, definitely not in the mood for mushrooms now.
"... kids," he says the word quietly, hands at either side of his head, ready to start scratching and digging in if explaining it gets to be too much. Even though Daryl's admitted that he believes his word, Jeremy knows it still sounds crazy, and yet he relives it every time he has to explain it. Everything he saw on those monitors, everything he scrambled to write down in his notebook so he wouldn't forget. But now? Now, that's all he ever wants - forget, and move on. "They were ... j-just kids. They-- they didn't ... deserve wh-what happened to them."
no subject
"Yeah," he quietly agrees, not even needing to hear the fate of the children to know they couldn't have deserved whatever happened to them — presumably not deaths from natural causes. It's almost better not knowing. "Kids never do deserve the bad shit that happens to 'em." He's silent for a long moment as he brushes off his hands and checks over his pack, securing it in preparation for moving on from the area. But not before cooking a little something for the trip.
He digs out a pit in the ground and uses one of his sponsor-given fire starting kits to quickly get a small cooking fire going. Snapping off a couple thin branches from a nearby bush, he skewers several mushrooms on each, then holds them close to the fire, letting the flames lick along each mushroom in turn but without burning them. Once he judges them to be done, the fire's extinguished and covered completely, and he pulls on his pack as he gets to his feet.
"Reckon you didn't deserve what happened to you, neither," he says as he holds out a hand to help Jeremy up — along with offering one of the mushroom-filled skewers. "C'mon. I'll take you to my camp." Without further detours. The guy looks like hell, a decent meal with drinkable water and secure place to rest will probably do him good. Besides which, Daryl's been exploring and hunting since before sunrise; he's looking forward to regrouping with Rick and Vivi, preferably around a nice campfire, and settling in before nightfall. As rough as arenas can be, they do have their fleeting moments of peace.
no subject
But, thinking about it now doesn't help matters much, especially when that leads to thoughts of how he couldn't help them at all in the end. He never brought his findings to the police, he never told anyone about his experiences, he never even thought to bring a video camera one night to record proof of the animatronic's murderous nighttime activity. No one would've believed him at all, and because of his own recklessness in taking that day shift after his nightmarish week he got himself killed before he could do anything anyway. It certainly doesn't make him feel too good about himself.
Jeremy decides he might as well just pay closer attention to what Daryl's doing, instead of wallowing in self pity. Not that he'll remember any of the steps involved, probably, but he never learned things like how to build fires or what mushrooms aren't poisonous. He focuses on that instead, taking in the size and colour of the mushrooms, the shape of the small branches, and each step in starting the fire with the kit. It's interesting to watch, at least, and the mutual silence between them is only broken by the soft crackling of the fire. It'd be nice, in any other situation.
Before he gets too lost in his thoughts, Daryl snaps him out of it, and Jeremy belatedly notices the fire's gone and it's time to go. The idea of an actual camp is appealing, even if all it is, is just a more comfortable spot on the ground to rest his head. He hesitates, only out of his own nervousness, before reaching to grasp Daryl's offered hand to help haul himself to his feet. And fried mushrooms do smell pretty good, on an empty stomach. He doesn't say much more beyond a quiet word of thanks, and his pace is rather slow, but he is grateful for the help and he looks forward to reaching the camp. Maybe after he rests properly for a little while, he can tell Daryl that himself.