thearena | Every aching old machine will feel no pain [OPEN]

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Every aching old machine will feel no pain [OPEN]

WHO | Sigma and You!
WHAT | The old man is injured and tries to hide himself before he becomes an easy target. Sponsor parachutes flying to places don't make that any easier...
WHEN | Sunset of the First Day of the Arena.
WHERE | Wandering Fantasyland
WARNINGS/NOTES | Sigma's powers will be activated, so if you want to get violent then check that out first please!

It was a perfect picture of home.

Rusted rides, overturned carousels, weathered murals and bright, childish colours perverted by dirt and grime. The park had been neglected and eventually fell into obscurity, just as it had on his Earth. With only a handful of surviving humans, scattered sparsely around the world, did anyone dare remember Disneyland - a happier time when children were innocent?

California had been his home state, and though with a broken rib and sprained ankle it was hardly an appropriate time to reminisce, Sigma felt slightly nostalgic. How old had he been the last time he'd come here? Twelve? Thirteen? An enthusiastic child, he'd pestered his mother to take him again at every opportunity. But then High School hit, then University, and then the apocalypse. Only as an old man did he have his chance to return...

He thought Kyle would have loved it.

Propping himself against a fence to stagger forward, he moaned as he stumbled over cracked cobblestones, his injured ankle giving him trouble. Eventually when the pain in his chest became too overwhelming to even breathe, Sigma ducked into a shop and sat down against a counter, a poor hiding place.

His side aching and his costume soaked with Donatello's blood, Sigma fell nauseous. There was no way he'd have the strength to seek Kyle out on his own.. it would have to wait until morning.

If he could survive until morning...

Needing a better place to spend the oncoming night, he was halfway inside an artificial building near what had once been the Peter Pan ride when he noticed the familiar blips and blinking of a Sponsor Gift lodged in a balcony above him. Sigma froze in terror; he'd clearly made an impression at the Cornucopia, but the parachute threatened to give away his new hiding spot. Sigma gritted his teeth, how could he climb up there in his condition? Still, he had no choice but to go after it...

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"Yeah?" Howard perks up. He didn't realize he knew any other Californians here, and a part of him wonders, just wonders a little... "Where? I'm from Perdido Beach, about an hour and a half south of here."

He gets back up, looking a bit loathe to leave the corner he wedged himself into, as if walls alone can protect him. He approaches Sigma without the trust he showed back in the Arena, but he approaches nonetheless. "Yeah, but you're also covered in blood."

He pauses. "Unless that's not yours."

Sigma paused and made an effort to put a place to the name, but he'd never heard of Howard's home. He looked confused, but did not question him - perhaps it was before his time. "In L.A., as a matter of fact. I received my undergraduate degree at the UCLA," he says sadly. These places no longer existed either in Panem or in his world.

Having never truly lied to Howard, Sigma slowly nods. "...I had no other choice but to... neutralize a Tribute at the Cornucopia." It had been an unfortunate experience... unfortunate that Donatello hadn't submitted and allowed himself to be killed. Unfortunate also that Sigma couldn't bring himself to do it. "Ah, my opponent did not die, but I believe it is safe to say I succeeded." Unless a sponsor was willing to somehow cauterize the wound, that creature wouldn't last long.

Edited 2013-03-29 21:34 (UTC)

"Ew. L.A. traffic." Howard wrinkles his nose and approaches Sigma again, asking permission with his body language rather than his voice to take a look at the injuries. "They attack you first?"

He pauses when he hears something behind him. He pulls the folding knife from his pocket instantly and whirls around, taking stock of the room. He's about to discount it as just nerves when the sound comes again, from right outside the door, a scratching noise.

He holds a finger in front of his mouth to tell Sigma to be quiet as he approaches the window around the door and peeks outside. Satisfied there's no human there, he hesitatingly ekes the door open.

It's a cat. A mangy tuxedo cat sharpening its claws on the door. It looks at Howard with distaste but doesn't run. Howard slips the knife back in his pocket and pauses, letting the cat get accustomed to his presence, and then lunges, grabbing it by the back of the neck and dragging it back inside. It squalls a bit, but with its nape captured can't effectively thrash.

Howard sneaks back over to Sigma, holding the cat out. "Got us dinner."

Sigma is partway through wondering if he should answer Howard when he hears the noise as well. When in terror, even the smallest scratch was heavily exaggerated, and Sigma shakes his head as if to tell Howard to stay out of his battles. He'd grown ready to accept that whatever came through that door would kill him... But Sigma can only watch helplessly as Howard opens it, perhaps to slay an innocent young Tribute that had been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

And then the Doctor gasps angrily as though he had. "Howard! Put her down at once!" Summoning all of his remaining strength before the boy decides to snap the poor thing's neck, Sigma straightens to his feet and holds his arms out to collect the cat. "This lady is not your next me-owl!" Despite the bad pun, the Doctor was quite obviously annoyed.

Howard's more than happy to drop the squirming, clawed thing into Sigma's arms. Even a stray cat is heavy when you haven't eaten all day and are small to start with.

"Did you just..."

He blinks, trying to decide if Sigma really did just make a cat joke. Then he grins, and in a hushed voice, says, "God, Sigma, you should know this is no time for kitten around."

He still intends to eat the cat.

The cat is deposited into Sigma's arms with very much fuss, it squirms and scratches his sleeves to tatters. Rivulets of white blood appear on his hands, but Sigma doesn't seem to notice. He sits down gingerly and holds it with the care a parent would show to their screaming baby, and begins inspecting the animal's fur.

He finds the time to shoot a glare at Howard. "I'm not kitten around. I'm purrfectly serious. -Ignore the tic, it's pawtomatic, I can't control it."

When the animal begins batting at his chest, Sigma has no choice but to seize the animal by the scruff of the neck. Though he could likely crush the young cat's bones between two titanium fingertips, he handles it with a surprising gentle strength. "She's nearly scratched herself to death, poor purrincess. Lend me your knife for a mewment, I'm going to cut her claws."

"You're asking me for my knife so you can get us a pet?" Howard asks, incredulous. "Are you fricking serious?"

He's more affronted about being asked to part with his only weapon than anything, even though it's just him and a supposed ally. He shakes his head, looking at Sigma as if the old guy's just stated something to the effect of "by the way, the world is flat and I'm your mother".

"Sigma, you can't keep a pet. You can't even keep yourself in one piece, for fuck's sake." He shakes his head, curling his upper lip. "It's just impawssible."

Sigma responded to Howard's attitude with the closest thing he could manage to an eyeroll. He wished his companion would stop making fun of him long enough to think it through. "This had nothing to do with kneading a pet. Look how sick she is! Haven't you ever felt meowbligated to look after a helpless little girl at least once in your life?" He began stroking the cat lovingly around the ears with his free hand. It responds with a frightened yowl that Dr. Klim does not seem to notice. In fact, he seems rather... comforted by the animal's presence. "She'll die of an infection if I don't do anything fur her."

He then held out his hand for the knife. "And I don't eat cats, Howard. Under any circumstanyances."

"Yeah, well, that's nice for you." Howard's tone is steely and ugly and a little hurt. Sometimes he forgets the chasm between him and most normal people. Most normal people haven't starved before, haven't had to make the choice between slowly dying and eating cats or garbage or stealing from people even weaker. Most people think the idea of eating someone's pet is grotesque, and that he, by extension would also be brutal and sick.

The judgment makes Howard feel small and sad and distant. Makes him feel like crying, but he won't give Sigma the satisfaction, he tells himself.

He doesn't give Sigma the knife. He does, however, put it back in his pocket and reach forward and pet the cat's head, a lost expression on his face. It's obvious he's never had a pet, because he tries to pet about her ears rather than with the grain of her fur.

K had been searching for Sigma for a little while. It was an equal excuse to explore, and to his great fortune he'd seen very little of anyone, since ditching the Cornucopia.

That might be a side effect of how large the area was. K only thought this was bad for one reason - it was significantly harder to find Sigma.

He'd eventually managed to find him, of course - peering in dusty window after dusty window (and, of course, avoiding contact with others that weren't Sigma). He had a distinct impression that entering unannounced would be bad news - even if he knew the both of them.

K's naturally silent walk was a blessing, sometimes - and now, without his bells his father had given him, it was indeed completely silent. He moved to the door.

And simply knocked, quiet enough that nobody outside would hear but loud enough that hopefully the two inside would hear. No need to be too cautious, in his opinion - it was him, Sigma, and the dumpster boy. No real danger, in his opinion.

Puzzled by Howard's behavior, Sigma frowns. Too preoccupied to recall Howard's past, he can only wonder if the boy has a grudge against cats - they were pests on his Earth, after all. This theory is crushed when Howard bends down to pet it behind the ears, and he does not bother to correct his petting technique: the cat dislikes both of their strokes equally.

Then came a soft knock on the door, snapping him from his confusion. ...Knock? The Doctor turned towards the sound curiously.

His thoughts turned first to Eponine, and then suddenly to Kyle. He immediately straighted up, a renewed hope in his eye. Who would knock in this situation but an ally? It was foolish to hope in such a dire situation, he knew, but it was all he'd ever had.

"Answer the door. Don't be afraid," Sigma ordered calmly, his tic apparently cured. He brought the cat to his chest and held her in his arms as she hissed - the animal was certainly not going to be a silent companion.

"'Don't be afraid'. Why don't you just tell me not to breathe next, okay?" Howard grumbles and slips over to the door, peeking out. He seems loathe to leave the comfort of the cat, and pulls his lucky rabbit foot from his pocket and strokes it with his thumb, as if replacing the feeling of fur.

He recognizes K from his dumpster-diving venture, but he wouldn't say he'd call him an ally. Acquaintance, at best.

"Siggy Pop, you better be right on this." He pulls the knife out again and opens the door, backing up so that if K attacks immediately he's not in range. He looks at K as if he's assessing a threat. "Hey."

His knock had the intended effect, and K was pleased to see as much. He notes Howard's look - he didn't consider the other guy an ally, either. They were simply people who knew each other - anything more would require more interaction.

K had no qualms about potentially killing Howard, but it was a pointless gesture in the first place - unless Howard assaulted him, there was no reason to try. Killing him might make Sigma mad, or injure K himself, after all.

That was why he merely nodded in greeting. He had already sized Howard up through the window - beyond the knife Howard was now holding, K didn't feel threatened at all. If he knocked it away, Howard would presumably be helpless...

In any case.

"Ah, hello. Sigma is here, correct?" It's a question of courtesy, of course. K already knew he was here.

He just wanted to be sure.

Less thankful than he should be for Howard's patience with him time and time again, the Doctor is so focused on the door that he overlooks his charm. As the entrance creaks open, Sigma feels as though a heavy yoke has been lifted from his shoulders, and even the intense pain in his leg and chest no longer seems so sharp. "K, I am glad to see you," he sighs. Pinning the cat down gently with one arm, he gestures for him to come inside. His relief draining him, he is not sure he can stand up again to meet him.

"Howard, this is K. We met outside of the Arena. Believe me when I say you can trust him," he reassures, though each statement he'd made had been a lie. He knew Howard to be incredibly sharp for a boy his age, and he hoped the sincerity in his voice was enough to lead him off track: to convince him that this was not the one Sigma wished to win.

Otherwise, they'd have no alliance at all.

But unfortunately, Howard is that sharp. He didn't put the pieces together before, but now, able to look back and forth and compare faces, now that the strange familiarity has a name, he can't ignore it. Even though he so badly wants to.

It's there. The identical structure of the jaws, the eye sockets, the nose. One weighed down a little with age, the other fresh and tight with youth. And it's also there, the kind of loyalty between parents and their children that the rest of the world seems afforded, that he wasn't.

And it fills him with anger. He doesn't sneer or furrow his eyebrows or frown, but his eyes take on a deadened cast as that anger threatens to spill out and then turns back inwards. He knows that Sigma and K don't mean to dangle their alliance in front of him, but it doesn't help any to know that it's incidental.

He puts the knife away. He holds onto the charm. The battered orange fluff catches the dim light. He looks down at the top of his shoes. "Well, this is awkward."

K catches two things: one, Sigma is lying. And two, Howard is suddenly awkwardly staring at his feet. He wasn't used to social situations, certainly, but he'd learned from the best in terms of manipulation. Even if it was unintentionally, on her part.

He wasn't sure what exactly had unsettled Howard, but he got the feeling their alliance - which by this point he'd found overt - was the cause.

"It's good to see you as well, Sigma." A simple greeting for a simple greeting. Pleasantries Akane had taught.

At Sigma's notation to Howard, he raised his hand apologetically - "Ah, Howard and I have met before." He was tempted to ask Howard why he thought so - was a meeting of two alliances really that awkward? - but he let Sigma make the first response - he knew Howard much better then K did.

Although if Sigma didn't say anything to that, K might find it necessary.

Sigma watched Howard with a bit of alarm. Though Kyle had a harder time grasping the subtleties of human emotions, Sigma could see the anger in Howard's eyes and knew he'd figured it out. He'd even started to give it away, and the Doctor needed to stop him.

"I wasn't aware. I hope your meeting was an amicable one." He wished Howard would explain, though the boy was distracted. If Howard knew what sort of relationship Sigma had with his son he wouldn't be so envious.

Kyle was not one who would be startled easy by blood-soaked clothing, and he was sure the other already knew that blood wasn't his. Still Sigma offered an explanation: "I had some trouble at the Cornucopia, but I am alright. K, this is Rita," he decided quickly, gesturing to the angry cat. He'd had to pick a name off the top of his head and went with one from an old movie he'd liked.

Now that Kyle was here, there was no need to wait to open the food - the cat between his arms, Sigma twisted the lid off of the canister with much difficulty. There was a hearty beef stew inside, and Sigma retrieved a few large chunks of meat - putting them into his palm, he offered the handful to the cat, who greedily began lapping it up. He knew he was in no condition to win this Arena, and the idea that something needed him a little longer to survive was strangely comforting.

Howard casts a glance at K that says, even to those without a ton of social awareness, that he doesn't want K to elaborate that much. He'd rather Sigma not know that Howard spent a lot of the trip back to the Capitol compulsively eating from the dumpster. It's hard enough to feel uncivilized and dirty and uncouth for wanting to use the cat as food.

Then he looks back at his shoes and wraps his arms tight around himself. This isn't the place to start a fight. Once he finds the motivation, he'll just slink away and let Sigma and K have their little family reunion time, while he walks alone back towards Thunder Mountain. Nothing but his knife for company.

He stares at his shoelaces up until he hears the pop of the sealed canister opening and sees Sigma giving the cat some of those precious, life-giving pieces of meat.

"Are you crazy?" He only just keeps his voice from rising to a shriek. A hundred images flash through his mind - him starving, him and Sigma huddled up in the cold last Arena, him back in the FAYZ eating pieces of grass and drinking from bottles of cleaning supplies because nausea was easier to deal with than hunger, kids with their hair falling out in clumps from malnutrition, ribs poking out until they looked like sci-fi props instead of real anatomy, and Aunamee, last time, telling Howard "I no longer feel safe with you" when Howard told him to slow down and ration the food. "Don't - don't waste the food on the..."

His voice trails off weakly as that last memory lodges firmly in his throat.

K's information-retentive nature here is a godsend for Howard. The glance is all he needs to dodge approaching the subject of how they'd met - it'd be the only thing that'd elicit such a glare.

K had common sense, after all.

Sigma's decision to name the cat was a bit unexpected. Akane had maybe prompted Sigma's cat puns in front of him once or twice - but K hadn't ever been aware of Sigma's... crazy cat father streak. Other then that mild surprise, Kyle was nonplussed by the goings on here. Sigma was covered in blood (although what exactly had covered him in blood was something curious), and being dumb.

Kyle was never someone to accept death as an inevitability for those he loved.

Howard's response at least mirrors K's: that is a waste of food. In fact, K chose to stare at Sigma. Howard was being ignored, if only for the moment - once again, he was hoping Sigma could help where he could not.

"Sigma. I believe attempting to domesticate a cat - ah, my apologies, Rita - in this environment is a poor decision. It will be only another mouth to feed with no loyalty to you, and may carry disease. And, if you teach it to rely on you, what will happen when you are not here to care for it? Should you win, I doubt they will let you take a cat like that with you."

K was stern-voiced as he outlined why everything Sigma was doing right now was logically Stupid.

K was never the best son.

Edited 2013-04-09 21:46 (UTC)

Sigma is visibly offended by Howard and Kyle's reactions, though he has no reason to be. He knew well that both of their circumstances had not lead them to an affinity for animals. And though his son was right on all counts, Sigma had persevered before - a long time before - feeding the strays despite his mother's fury that her perfectly good lunches were wasted on pests. Perhaps it is from a similar loving stubbornness that Sigma does not listen.

He allows the cat to finish the handful before speaking. "I only want to do her good. If I cut her nails to stop her from worsening her infection, she will be less able to hunt and it will be my responsibility to provide for her until they grow back. Besides, it is my gift to do with as I please,"

There is a rebellious pause before he extends the canister to his guests. "The rest of this is for the two of you anyway," he sighs. "I was saving it for you, K, and now I owe Howard a meal as well. Please do not kill each other over it." He hopes this peace offering will calm Howard down and keep his son from abandoning him. These children...

"I'm not taking your food, Sigma," Howard says quickly, not because he doesn't want it but because he remembers the knife sliding into his shoulder, into his gut, into his back. He can't get weird about food. He can't let himself get weird about food, or Sigma will kill him. Or K. Or someone.

He passes it instead to K. "Look, Siggy Pop, I'm not trying to get harsh on your pets, but we need to be realistic here. Everything your- everything K's saying is right. It's logical."

He raises his gaze to look straight at Sigma. "Okay, so, I met K. You'll still give me a chance to run?" He doesn't much care that K won't understand the reference; what matters is that Sigma does. It means their alliance still exists, if only for the moment, if only because there are still so many people in the Arena.

Sigma's stubbornness, as always, was irritating to K in a way he couldn't quite express. Maybe it was the fact that the first time he'd gone up against it, he'd gotten a robot mom, and the second time his father had intended to let Akane die, along with himself. Neither experience was a good one, after all. K was prepared to go to town, at least, before Sigma offered the food.

He shot Sigma a Look - "I assume that means you don't intend to eat?" K was never in danger of abandoning Sigma - but he'll argue for the other not doing stupid stuff in favor of his well being. It'd be sweet, if K's form of loving subtlety had any setting other than logically tearing Sigma down.

He notes the nickname - Siggy Pop - with perhaps a bit of amusement, too, although he's mildly annoyed to have it passed to him - he still takes it, however. Even if it's Sigma's food, it's better in his hands then on the ground.

K catches the reference's meaning, even if he doesn't catch the reference itself. In a game focused around killing, like this, Howard using a phrase like that immediately brought K to jump to 'will you give me a chance to run before trying to kill me'.

In all honesty? Knowing Sigma, K doubted the answer would be anything other then yes. He did just try and save a feral cat.

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Every aching old machine will feel no pain [OPEN]

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/tags 6 days late i'm sorry guys