thearena | You Should Have Never Trusted Disneyland

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You Should Have Never Trusted Disneyland

WHO| Howard and anyone
WHAT| Howard gets back on his feet
WHEN| Late third week
WHERE| Frontierland and Tomorrowland
WARNINGS| Howard's pretty damaged and I'll describe some of his injuries in detail during tags.

Wyatt did a good job with Howard, and the medicine from the Capitol is top-knotch. In addition, Howard's always been somewhat resilient. It takes him a few days, mostly spent sleeping in the scaffolding of Thunder Mountain under Wyatt's watchful eyes and eating the few rats he can get in traps, but soon enough he's moving about again.

Protein's all well and good, but he and Wyatt will need something else before long. He remembers there are orchards around Tomorrowland, so as soon as he can walk again on his injured leg he decides to set out that way, under the cover of night. The dark scares him, but no more than the day. At least at night he can blend in and not be a blaring target.

He's discarded his white district outfit and replaced it with some of the tattered, moth-eaten souvenir clothing from one of the shops - an oversized black t-shirt of Scar from The Lion King, a pair of jeans with the Mickey head sown into the back pockets, and a big grey sweatshirt with the castle emblazoned on the front. It all highlights how very small he is, as if his body hasn't even made the slightest effort to fill out the clothing. He's sheared the leg off the jeans up above his injury on his lower thigh - while he isn't happy to be displaying a weakness, he needs quick access to it to clean it whenever he finds fresh water.

The worst of the cuts along his torso are hidden by the clothing, but his face is still a horrible mess, with some of the bitemarks scabbing and oozing periodically. The hole in his cheek and split from his mouth to his chin makes it hard to eat, and has left him with a stiffness in his neck. His head cants to the left whenever he's not thoughtfully trying to keep it straight.

The new folding knife never leaves his hand. Never.

It feels all wrong to go through Disneyland like this. He doesn't walk like a tourist or a kid. Instead he darts from shadow to shadow, perpetually glancing over his shoulder and doubling back in case anyone's following him. It takes well over an hour to get to Tomorrowland.

If he were a religious kid he'd offer a prayer of thanks to whatever god when he finds a patch of blackberries and tomatoes. He starts to fill the pockets of his sweater, then a lunchbox he looted from a souvenir shop, and then he lays out flat the cape he got at the start, throwing all the fruits he can gather onto it regardless of ripeness. He gathers it all into a makeshift sack, slings it over his back and starts the arduous journey back to Thunder Mountain.

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The first thing Howard will hear when he gets close is something that sounds like a cat, spitting mad and yowling up a storm.

It’s R’s attempt at an apology. Something that might keep Howard from bolting the moment he sees him squeezed in his hideaway.

After cleaning up the gore from eating that Tribute, R tries to straighten his clothes and fix himself up. He runs a hand through his hair, checks his eye (it’s still in: cool), even dunks his face for a second into the swamp and swishes the water before spitting it out. R feels squeaky clean. There’s not much he can do about the big dark stain all over his chest, but at least it’s not splashed all over his face. He empties his pockets and makes sure he didn't stash any leftovers in there. Anything he finds, R hurriedly stuffs into his mouth. The next thing he needs to do is harder than killing that Tribute - he needs to man up to Howard. R wants to look as non-threatening as possible.

Having chunks of his last meal falling out of his pockets won't help.

R picks up the cat on the way, stalking it down until it’s too tired to get away when he grabs it by the scruff of its scrawny neck. It gets a second wind by the time he makes it to Thunder Mountain. By the time he labors to where he sat with Howard, it’s hissing and clawing again. R’s just happy he resists the urge to kill it on the spot. He’s also proud he remembers to shuffle carefully over the bridge. This time he doesn’t fall through.

By the time Howard gets back, the zombie is jammed into an awkward squat, looking too big for the little space, holding onto a feral cat in his lap that lays back its ears flat against its skull and hisses. R’s head rests bent to the side, looking at nothing in particular as he drifts and waits. It’s the sound of footsteps against the fake stone that makes him look up.

“How…ward?” R moans tentatively. “Wuh…wait. Please? Talk.”

R starts to lurch to his feet and nearly brains himself against the low overhang. He remembers he jammed himself into here for a reason and settles back down, staring up at Howard. How long as it been, exactly? R thinks it might’ve been a week, two weeks, but he can’t remember. What he does know is that time hasn’t been good for his friend. Howard looks so beat and chewed up that if it wasn’t for that Living smell wafting off him, R would’ve mistaken him for a zombie himself. What happened to him?

Edited 2013-04-04 09:56 (UTC)

Howard's exhausted by the time he gets back, and as such, he's just a little careless. As he hobbles and staggers his way across the bridge, he just assumes that the figured hunched in the tunnel is Wyatt waiting for him. He doesn't notice the scent of the dead flesh from R's pockets or latest meal; his sense of smell is ruined by the infection growing in the hole in his own mouth, which makes swallowing taste foul and fills his sinuses with a noxious invisible cloud. It's dark, too, and he and Wyatt have agreed to use the fire minimally, to avoid attracting attention.

So he gets up the rail and into the tunnel and dumps his bag of fruit and lunchbox on the ground before he realizes who he's sharing space with. The white cape full of food is stained now from where tomatoes and blackberries burst and leaked, staining it bloody colors that look more sinister than their source, especially in the dim light of evening. He takes a moment to try and press flat the bandage on his chin, which is peeling away. Sweating from running back and forth has loosened the adhesive side.

And then he realizes that the frame of the body lurching to its feet isn't Wyatt, and the voice calling to him is certainly not Wyatt.

"You?!"

He's so startled he takes a step back onto the rigged bridge - and his foot plummets right through with a crack. He yelps and grabs the rail before he falls through entirely, landing on the tyre with his back, but he knows it'll take a few minutes to extract himself unaided, and until then he's completely at R's mercy.

Thankfully, being trapped here gives R enough time to finish his schpiel. His schpiel with pleases, that would sound like an apology if Howard's head weren't filled with images of being eaten by a pack of hungry zombies. R's slow grunts and wheezes are punctuated by the screaming of a cat that seems to come from right here in the tunnel.

"Shit, shit, oh my god, oh my god..." He swallows - a piece of bandage that's come loose gets stuck on his upper lip - and tries to lift himself from the awkward position. "Where's your friend, huh? She lying in wait too? You guys gonna split me down the middle, crack the wishbone with my sternum or something?"

When Howard suddenly staggers back, R thinks for a second the little guy broke his neck before he can get two groans into the apology. To his relief, Howard grabs onto something and flops back onto a tire like a turtle. Whew!

R uses the time to extracts himself from the alcove, almost letting go of the cat before remembering he’s supposed to hold onto it. He drags the cat by its scruff after him, oblivious to the yowls as he lurches out. There’s a steady stream of “shits” and “oh shits” bubbling out from Howard’s direction, R wincing when he gets past that and starts getting to the real meat of the problem. Of course Howard’s scared. R tells himself it’s make sense, he’d been on the verge of eating him, after all. The only thing that saved him was he was quick and knew the lay of the land way better than Karis. It still aches, though. His dislocated shoulder twitches, like he wants to bend down and help Howard. Instead R only slouches there, watching as the human struggles to lever himself back up.

Probably better he keep his distance. Between the horrified look on Howard’s face and the cat trying to make a getaway, R should keep his hands where they are.

R’s head lolls. “She’s…gone. It’s…just me.”

The sucky thing is Howard is dead on the mark. If she had been there, that’s totally how it would’ve gone down. A split with guts flying, blood splashing and R scooping Howard’s still-warm brains out. It’s just luck they ran into Beck before this. R thinks he could point that out. Somehow he doubts that would put Howard at ease. The best thing to do, he thinks, is try to steer the conversation away from Karis. She’s not here and anyway, it’s on him. He should learn to say no. Stand up for himself. Put that way ahead of “stand up better overall” on his priority checklist.

“Wanted…to talk,” R gasps. He gears himself for the longest thing he’d said since…uh, forever, he guesses. He’s not sure. With that Tribute he ate humming in his dry veins and stiff muscles, the words seem like they should come easier. It’s not that wall between him and the world this time. It’s because R really has no idea what to say. He claws forward anyway. “I’m sorry. I don’t…want to…hgh…hurt you. You’re…good. A friend. I…should be…good like…you. Not thing like…me. Want to be…better?”

The cat chooses then to let out an ear-splitting scream. It tries to claw its way up his arm, raking long black furrows in his skin.

“Am I…making sense?”

Edited 2013-04-04 20:31 (UTC)

Howard whimpers a bit as he listens, not in fear so much as pain - the sharp edge of the wagon tyre is opening up one of the cuts in his back that Wyatt tried so hard to stitch up, and blood is starting to seep through the t-shirt and sweater. He writhes and gets himself up on his elbows.

And he listens to R's little speech. The whole thing, even though it takes a while, as all things R says do. Maybe it's because he was friends with Orc, and he doesn't notice as much as other people when someone takes a long time to say something. Maybe it's because he just doesn't have it in him to run. He probably could outpace R, even injured, but instead he just stays there on the track, his leg dangling through, propped up on his arms with a slight wind chilling the small spot of blood on his back.

"I'm not good...fucking idiot..." It's unclear whether or not he's insulting R or himself.

He thinks about how he should have seen this coming. He looks at R and sees the future, if only because he knows the past. Howard has a long and varied history of getting close to people only to have it blow up in his face. The last string of betrayals stretches out behind him, and he reaches a hand up to touch his own face, expression crumpling up as if he's holding back tears. Eponine bit his face part off. Alpha tried to kill him. Aunamee stabbed him to death and Orc broke his nose and his parents left him.

Howards are there to be used until they're discarded. Like resources. Like anything else. Like people, in general. It's really just something he should resign himself to.

Howard supposes he makes for a good meat shield, or a good extra set of eyes, or a good pack mule to courier things around. He makes for a below-average bodyguard, an awful motivational speaker and a semi-decent morality pet. He can provide body heat, traps, world knowledge. Companionship.

He guesses it's not so bad to be used for companionship. He doesn't like the idea of getting broken down for parts and eaten at the end, but...

"Fine, just, whatever." The flight response drains out of him and he looks at R with a tortured expression. At R's wonky eye, rolling slightly off-track. He takes a deep breath, looks at the cat, pushes himself up entirely. He doesn't believe R won't eat him, but at the moment he can no longer find it in him to care.

His stance is unsteady and he nearly collapses when he gets back into the tunnel, massaging the shin of the leg that fell through the plank and feeling that damn spear wound that's made getting around so awful. He looks up at R and shakes his head, tone very serious. "Don't call yourself a 'thing', okay?"

R wishes Howard wouldn’t look at him like that. He tells himself that the fact they’re still having this conversation is a good sign. He should accept Howard’s fine, whatever because it can still be a start.

Howard’s progress back to the tunnel is almost zombie slow – it’s definitely zombie unsteady, like he’s walking drunk – and R has more than enough time to start whipping up words. The scent of new blood makes him glad he ate already. The hunger starts to sit up, forming a picture of Howard lying at his feet until he beats it back with a mental crowbar. It’s not a headshot. It’s enough to make the hunger go back to simmering under the surface. R stands over Howard with the cat in hand, the cat trying to take a shot at Howard almost out of principle. R jerks his shoulders in a shrug.

“Not...the point?” R hates it comes out as a question. Half the time it sounds like he’s asking, not telling. “We…can have this…philo-phil…other talk…later...?”

R does sigh this time, the sound coming out as a wheeze from his stabbed chest. He didn’t come here to argue about who – or what – counts as a person or a thing with Howard. He’s here because even he knows this is the right thing to do. After years of killing people, R tells himself that he could start doing the right thing more often and that starts with trying to make it up to Howard. R awkwardly starts the process of stooping down a safe distance from the human, folding his corpse down and down and finding that doing it with a live cat in hand makes it a lot harder than it should be. There. Now he isn’t looming over Howard. R strikes that off the checklist. The next part is trying to coax the guy away from looking like he’s going to curl up into a fetal position and cry. This one might be harder.

The zombie tightens his hold on the cat he drags into his lap. Instead of purring, it makes an angry warning noise in its chest. “My…point. I…should be…better friend. I’ll help you. Make…it up? Show you.”

R stares across the few feet at Howard, taking in what looks like bandaged bites on his face. There are signs of infection but they don’t match what should happen when something like him is involved. It’s not a Dead’s bite. R wants to ask who did this, as if he could shuffle off and start his apology by returning the favor with a few bites of his own. Now he’s not being good.

Edited 2013-04-05 00:58 (UTC)

Howard cringes a little as R approaches, but doesn't run, nor does he rise to his feet. He just clutches the puncture wound in his thigh a little tighter, feeling the pressure turn to a sort of pain that blurs out other feelings, that makes processing information easier. He's used to chewing on things, his fingernails and the inside of his mouth, but with his face as such a mess Wyatt's tried to discourage him from doing that too much, and Howard's trying not to disappoint.

"Is that why you bought a cat? Is that, like, an apology cat? How am I supposed to believe you haven't mentally named that cat Dipping Sauce or Garnish or whatever?"

Well, except that that's something Howard would do, and R doesn't seem to be quite as keen on nicknames as Howard is. Furthermore, Howard doesn't really care - if R's here to try to lull him into a false sense of security, he just wishes R would give up the charade and get it over with.

The fact that R isn't throws Howard off balance, makes him want to put trust in someone again, because it's hard and lonely not to believe in anyone. It's what makes falling into the same of cycles of trust and abuse so easy, how difficult the loneliness of self-sufficiency is. As much as Howard's instincts and experiences are screaming for him to pull away, not just from R but from everyone, he needs human contact. Forget standing up for himself; he can't stand on his own at all.

So much wasted effort on all these pretty words if R just plans on turning around and eating him. Howard wants to believe that he just misunderstood what happened with Karis. He wants to believe R's honest.

"Here, let me just...take that. She's turning you into zombie jerky." Howard pulls his arms up and takes the cat from R, reaching up and snagging the nape of the neck and pinng the front legs down against the cat's torso. He brings the cat close to his chest and holds it tight, until it squeaks in protest, its little lungs and ribs being cramped in by the strange embrace. Howard seems to take some comfort in having something warm and furry under his control. He strokes its face a little, even as it hisses at him.

He talks more to the cat than to R. "Look, I...I don't. I don't know if I can believe you, okay? I'm sorry. I know you wouldn't be wasting all these words apologizing if you didn't mean it. You see all these bite marks? That's from a friend too. A good friend. So I don't need a long speech or nothing, I just...be patient with me."

Put like that, R realizes bringing the cat is painfully, obviously stupid. Like a live animal will fix anything. R can’t blush but he can hang his head, ashamed and embarrassed. R almost misses the days where he doesn’t feel anything at all. Thinking about it some more, he changes his mind. It aches, it sucks, he wishes he handled this better, but this is closer to what being human must feel like. It’s not all Sinatra and Elvis and warm fuzzy feelings in his chest cavity. It’s also stuff like…this, whatever this is.

Hard. That’s the word he’s looking for. It’s harder than swaying somewhere and groaning. It’s really hard.

R only shrugs again at Howard’s nicknames for the cat. It’s just a cat. It doesn’t have a name. But Howard’s reaching for it now, getting close enough that they could almost touch if it weren’t for a few inches, and R thinks that in itself is promising. For a moment he expects Howard to kill the cat on the spot, only he doesn’t, instead holding it close like a pissed off, feral teddy bear that may or may not have ticks and ringworm. The kinked tail flicks against his leg. Despite the hissing, the cat seems to prefer being with Howard than with him, only giving a half-hearted swipe with its claws. R slouches where he sits and absorbs Howard’s words.

“Patient,” R repeats. Patient and waiting, got it. Can do. The zombie falls silent for a long moment, as if he’s started to drift off again, when he focuses his eye back on Howard. “…Why…would your friend…bite?”

R flops up a hand to vaguely gesture at Howard’s hot mess of a face. His mouth sags down in a frown. They don’t look at the Arena the same way, Howard and him, and he’s realizing that life to the little guy here is a totally different story, complicated and everything that R struggles to really get. In some ways, being a corpse is easier.

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hope this is okay--I can change if you need!

perfect!

wheh sorry for the huge delay ;_;

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