And me without my coon skin cap.

[the_hit_list]

Who| Tim Drake and OPEN
What| Tim derps about, until someone finds him?
Where| The outskirts of Frontierland, where it meets the river
When| Week 3
Warnings/Notes| Previously existing wounds, zombie.



His stomach is starting to gnaw on his gallbladder, Tim's sure of it. He hasn't eaten since in thirty hours, and he wonders if he shouldn't have stayed in Tomorrowland, where there was food. But, aside from that, he doesn't think that he's in bad shape. Dehydration is his biggest fear; he can feel the headache coming on. Water would trick his stomach into feeling full, too, for awhile. Other than that, a couple of bruises, a few scrapes. Not bad for a death match. It's all from doing things that were borderline inadvisable - mainly climbing the rotting facades of New Orleans Square. The only actual cut he's gotten was from trying to break off a rusted pole early this morning. He had thought one of the feral cats was around, but the clanging protests of the metal must have scared it off. He wasn't hungry enough to eat a cat anyway. Not yet.

The cut's on the back of his hand, red and painful, even when he doesn't try to make a fist. He needs to clean it. Sitting on one of the few intact lengths of fence, Tim is looking towards where he knows the Rivers of America are. After Bruce's warning, he'd given the largest body of water a wide berth, but he needs to drink soon, before delusions set in. He'd rather not die of thirst. If he had more oranges, he wouldn't need to go near the river, but it's a trek back to where the trees are. There might not be any fruit left, anyway. He'll have to brave the water here eventually.

A silver parachute drifts down into his field of vision, and Tim instinctively reaches out to snag it. Dangling from its lines is a small flick-knife. He looks up to see where it might have come from, but sees only sky. This place just gets weirder. "Uh, thanks?"

Pulling the knife free from the parachute, he takes opens it up and inspects the blade. Short, but sharp. It may come in handy for all of the vermin running about. The chute, itself, too is a gift. He can cut it into strips to bandage his hand, once he cleans it. With a sigh and knife in hand, Tim gets up and starts heading toward the river.

Comments

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard, too, is at the river, carrying a Buzz Lightyear thermos he grabbed from Tomorrowland on his last run towards the blackberries and tomatoes he found there.

Unlike Tim, he's in a different state of distress. He's been eating regularly, if poorly, but he was seriously malnourished before he came here. He still has a frail, sinewy look, even though he's miraculously managed to gain weight this arena. And being near water in Frontierland has helped keep him from being too dehydrated, even if Howard would rather drink from the cleaner running water here.

But a drink isn't the only thing he's here for. He needs to rinse out his injuries, and he doesn't have much left in the way of medicine. His face is a wreck - some of the bite wounds have healed, but the hole in his cheek is hot and pus-covered, leaking into his mouth. The split from the inside base of his lip to his chin is similarly infected, and some of the cuts around his neck and back still ooze strange liquids, the flesh around them hot and angry. The bandages that covered each of these have long since become unusable.

At least the spear wound in his leg seems to be healing up alright.

As of today, he can tell he's running a fever. A septic infection is death in the arena - he knows - so he has to take whatever measures he can to put up a last show of resistance. It means using the last of his antibiotic medicine and most importantly, cleaning himself up. So he gets to the river, fills the thermos, and, after a quick glance around, pulls off the grey sweatshirt and Lion King t-shirt he took and grabs palmfuls of water and tries to rinse out the cuts on his neck.

Then he pauses, suddenly, as he sees someone approaching. He could run, he thinks, but he won't get anywhere fast. Or he could stay where he is and hope they don't attack him.

He stays where he is.

[the_hit_list]

Stopping short when he sees a young man on the river bank, Tim puts the distance between them at a few seconds hard running. But the guy isn't moving so maybe - no. He's wounded. He glances around hurriedly, seeing no one else, and fixes his eyes back on him. Where are all of these injuries coming from? If people are playing along with the game and attacking, why are they maiming and not finishing the job?

Oh, those sick bastards. Is this what the knife is for? To take out some wretched-looking male who looks like he's seen hell already? Tim's tempted to discard it right then and there. The only thing staying his hand is that he doesn't know who might find it. It's one less thing for everyone to kill each other with.

Very deliberately and openly, Tim folds the knife. He doesn't tuck it away; let him think that he's prepared to use it for now. He doesn't like this whole scene, stumbling upon a lame duckling with no one else in sight, but he's compelled to offer assistance of a sort. You pick up things, when your nightly haunt has its own miniature trauma center.

"The wounds," he calls over, not ready to approach. "If they're puncture wounds, you're going to need to do a little more than slap the water on them."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

So much for staying perfectly still and hoping other teenagers are like cats, only sensing movement. Howard watches the hand with the knife, watches the knife go folded, not trusting that it'll stay that way. He sizes up the stranger - the opposition, he thinks.

"They're bite marks," Howard says, gesturing to the worst of the injuries and the remains of the butterfly stitches holding parts of his face together, finding his feet so he can stand. His injured leg is still shaky, but the medicine the Capitol sent seems to have kept it from being a debilitating injury. He's lucky - a spear to the leg could have been fatal. "I think infection's kind of a given."

He's not about to tell Tim he has antibiotics and antiseptic - firstly because he certainly doesn't have enough to share, and secondly because he doesn't know that this new guy won't kill him for medicine. Tim's not that much bigger than he is, and looks like he's neither slept nor eaten in a while (Howard's very familiar with that look), but Howard's hardly in fighting shape, and his favored form of hand-to-hand combat is 'flail and scream'.

[splendid_roman]

Ian had seen parachutes coming down before, but never one so close. When he ran over he was in time to see the man take the knife from it. Ian had found enough around the area that he could use as weapons, but a sharp knife would be useful.

As the man headed off, Ian followed him, trying to stay quiet and out of sight.

[shambler]

R has a habit he keeps telling himself he'll shake one day: wandering. Wandering off and bumping into other zombies, wandering off in his head; wandering off in general.

Today, though, he wants to wander.

Since he told Howard he'd try to help him out and prove he really can be better, R thinks that starts with wandering around looking for supplies. All the good stuff to take care of a human. The problem is he can't cheat like he did with Julie, mine Perry's memories and know that hello, she likes pad thai and sushi and sunshine. It's not the same with Howard. Either R guesses or the little guy has to outright tell him and since things are still weird between them, R isn't sure how much he should press his chances bugging Howard for too much. If they're really friends, then he should figure this out on his own. Use that rotten excuse for a brain rattling in his skull.

R is stumbling along the bank of the Rivers of America where the swamp has sloshed over the concrete when he looks up and spots another guy totally stealing his wandering idea. R focuses his good eye and squints. The other Tribute is a splash of what might've been District 7's green but now the clothes are grimy in places and he thinks he spots the glint of a knife in his hand.

Man, that better not be one of Howard's friends. Since he's out here, he wants to make sure. R changes directions and lurches right to the guy, his ankle barely hanging on now by a few shreds of skin and muscle giving him a lop-sided limp.

R raises his voice and puts his back into the moan. "Stop...or I'll - "

He cuts himself off. Stop or he'll what? Eat him? Try to catch up as he takes off with a slow jog? There aren't many options on the table, R realizing too late he should've grabbed first and asked questions later.

[the_hit_list]

Bite marks are puncture wounds, but not the ones he had expected. Tim had thought first of knives; it's what he's used to seeing. Knives are plentiful in Gotham, cheap and quiet. However, he could see how someone could get attacked by the wildlife here.

Really, a knife wound would be preferable, because Howard's right: infection's a given. Saliva may be produced in a sterile environment, but then it enters the mouth which is basically a hot, wet germ trap. And that's when people are brushing their teeth regularly. "You need to get the water in the wound if you can. I don't know how to do that without water pressure or a syringe. I'd say any part that hasn't scabbed over should be pulled -

"Oh, come on, sit down before you hurt yourself, " Tim says, interrupting himself in exasperation as he watches him stand. "I won't get within 10 feet of you, if you want. I'm here for water, not a fight."

A fight that Tim is now considering in advance, deliberating the means by which with the opponent suffers the absolute least damage possible, because he doesn't want to add to the mess.

R vs. the guy who has a collection of throwing Rs. Yep, I'm amused.

[the_hit_list]

Scrambling backwards at the sound, Tim has the knife open before he can even blink and is staring at the zombie. At the zombie.

At. the. zombie.

Who doesn't seem to be a Black Lantern and is way too small to be Solomon Grundy. That's comforting. Tim doesn't hold out much hope for being able to talk his way out of this confrontation, though. This guy is already dead, so there isn't a mutual desire to live to use as a starting point. He's probably going to have to defend himself. He wonders if Bruce will accept that killing a zombie is simply restoring natures balance and protecting everyone in the arena. Unlikely.

Tim doesn't want to have this fight though, without his staff or a fully loaded utility belt. He has no range advantage here, and he doesn't want to work within arm's reach if he can help it.

Tim keeps moving backwards, noting that the zombie's not particularly fast and dragging one foot. Is he another tribute? Bruce had said that this was being broadcast live, and the zombie looks like every old B movie Tim's ever seen. Maybe he's one of the hazards they've put into the arena. That there on his neck - it looks suspiciously like gray matter. Is the zombie's brain leaking or does this one chow down on brains?

"Woah there, Solomon," Tim rasps out, before he has any more time to visual zombie dinners. "Why don't you stop, before I see how far up your nostril I can get this?"

[the_hit_list]

[ooc: If this isn't OK for you, please let me know and I'll edit.]]

Using the knife, Tim cut the silver material, tearing into roughly two inch wide strips that weren't as neat and uniform as he would have liked. He put the handle of the knife in his mouth, biting down on it as he tied the cloth together with square knots. He needed to use both hands to pull the knot tight, and the back of his hand has started to seep a clear fluid. Platelets and white blood cells. Tim began winding the makeshift bandage tightly around his left hand, but he stopped and picked his head up suddenly.

Unsure of what made him wary, he clenched his left hand around the still loose cloth and took the knife in his right hand. He didn't know if he'd heard something just then or if he's finally lost his mind. Still, he realized that he's been careless. There were too many people around, and he needed to do this somewhere that wasn't so open.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Human bite marks," Howard says, letting the gravity of that hang in the air. He's seen some of the wild animals around here, and he would have rathered that they were the culprit. Instead his best friend tried to chew his face off and rip his heart out, and only by the serendipity of her brutal death was he spared. Now he just gets to deal with the injuries and hate himself for feeling glad that she died.

Disneyland: the happiest place on earth!

"Twelve feet," Howard says quickly, sitting back down. He doesn't look like he trusts Tim as far as he could throw him, which isn't far. So he adds in, "when was the last time you ate protein? I know where you can get it."

Being useful is one of the most classic ways of staying alive.

8D

[shambler]

Uh, what? R is pretty sure he was supposed to be the one making threats here. So much for being big and scary. Karis is way better at this. It’s harder than it looks.

“Why…are you…here?” R demands. It’s hard to come across as bossy when it sounds like each word will be his last, but he tries. “In…truding! Go...away!”

Looking at the knife, R doesn’t feel that surge of self-preservation he might’ve had when he was alive. It’s shiny, he knows it’s sharp because he’s been stabbed enough times to get familiar with pointy objects, and none of that matters in the end when you’re a walking corpse. The easiest solution for Howard is to default to being a zombie and kill the stranger before he gets a chance to take that knife to anyone, but R finds himself balking. The hunger’s all for it. He’s not, though, because he’s already killed and if he can hold off murdering more people, then he’s gonna count that as a small victory.

The guy is definitely holding his knife like he really could stick it up his nose. R’ll give him that. He’s not holding it limp-wristed like some newbie to the whole us-or-them survival thing. He’s also backing away for every staggering step R takes, so maybe he could…he didn’t know, herd him? Into a corner? Or something? That strikes R suspiciously as a Plan. He realizes that the other Tribute is staring at him, maybe at the dried gore on his shirt, and R tries to puff out his chest and look bigger than he already is since he has his attention. Anything to try to intimidate the human without having to shamble him down and kill him.

Or get a knife stuck in his face. R isn’t scared of it, but that doesn’t mean he wants that thing jiggling in his face either. (Maybe he’s vain like that).

[the_hit_list]

Tim flinches at the clarification. He hadn't wanted to hear that. More evidence that people are here to play. He thinks that whoever it was is more of a berserker than a hero or vigilante. Superficial facial and head wounds aren't usually deadly; sure, they'll bleed copiously, but, if the brain isn't damaged through the orifices or eye and skull isn't penetrated, the victim will live. It's a waste of time.

"Twelve feet," Tim agrees. He thinks that he likes this kid. It's obvious from the bites that he wasn't the best at defense, but he knows enough to not accept the first offer. It could have been heavily biased in his opponent's favor. Smart.

Circling around to the water's edge, Tim gives him the full four yards, with some to spare. There's no point in antagonizing him. See, we're all friends here. He tries not to sound too greedy when he asks, "You found a source of protein? Meat or nuts? I haven't had any since I got here."

[the_hit_list]

Zombies used to scare the living day lights out of Tim, when he was young and watched movies that his parents wouldn't have approved of. Once you've seen the reanimated corpses of them however, facing a generic one isn't that bad. It's preferable to one that you knew, seeing how they've been rotting while you've been trampling on every limit they ever set.

No. He's not thinking about that. He's thinking about this one, for the moment keeping pace with him. He's not as conversational as a Black Lantern, not as stupid as a cinematic zombie. He's more verbal than "Braaaaaains." Does that mean he's intelligent enough to track someone? If he turned and ran, will he be in the clear?

Behind Tim is the whole of Frontierland. Ahead is the way back to garden where he arrived, Tomorrowland, and New Orleans. That's the way he needs. Tim starts taking his backwards steps at an angle; he wants some lateral distance as well.

"I'm here because they put me here," he says with some vehemence. "I woke up, I got chip shot in my arm, thrown into a tube and now I'm here. Did they do that to you? I want to go away, believe me. I wish I wasn't here. But I'm not intruding. Intruders have intent. This is negligent trespass at best."

Tim's stalling, and he doesn't care how obvious it is. He isn't the least bit interested to see if traditional zombie bite lore applies, but he's not sure it's right to leave something so obviously dangerous. It's no better than ditching the knife. He can't lead a zombie around forever. It'd be like putting a lion on a leash. Run? Fight? Impasse.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Thanks," Howard says, looking surprised, like he really didn't think Tim would follow his request. He's not used to people listening to his demarcations of comfort. He relaxes just a little bit and starts palming more water over the cuts on his neck, scratching away at some of the scabs.

"Meat. Cats, rats, fish, ducks. I'm good at catching things." And indeed, while Howard's starved skinny, or lean, he doesn't have the sunken look of current malnutrition. He's gotten enough to eat for the last month or so - three weeks in the arena and two weeks back in the Capitol. He knows hunger well, so he can see from the skin around Tim's eyes and the dullness of his hair that Tim's being honest when he says he hasn't eaten.

"I can show you how to get them if you promise not to kill me when I'm done."

[shambler]

Every time R thinks he's in control and he's got a Plan like a real person, suddenly he's getting things like "negligent trespass" thrown in his face.

R stares at the guy, wondering if he was a lawyer or a writer or something because he's still trying to work out what negligent trespass is supposed to mean. Is he really going to stand here arguing the difference between trespassing and intruding? With the way the words are spilling out of the guy, R's sure he won't win if he starts getting sucked into this. The guy can already speak circles around him - winning an argument with R isn't that hard. Between the big fancy words and the knife, R almost wants to take his chances with the knife. At least that's obvious.

"Same," R groans out warily. (If anything, he's actually slowed down in his approach, confused). "But...still. Go away. This spot's...taken. Find...other hiding...place. Howard has...dibs."

R tries to look like he means it. Put some oomf in his this-is-my-serious-face. Instead he looks like he's not even sure what he's doing here in Disneyland, walking and still Dead and having nitpicky conversations with a Living boy about intent to trespass.

[mediumdrip]

Blaine had seen the parachute and had gone to investigate. It was probably a bad idea, considering that it was for someone. It wasn't like he was trying to take it, he just wanted to see if it belonged to one of their friends.

When he saw a stranger he backed up, trying to hide, but he accidentally knocked into some of the debris, causing an embarrassing amount of noise.

[splendid_roman]

Ian stopped suddenly when the man looked up. He'd either been heard or spotted, so decided to show himself before he lost his quarry. As he stepped out into the open he hefted his broken fence piece and asked, "Where did you get that knife?" as if he didn't already know.

[the_hit_list]

When a man popped out of his hiding spot wielding some sort of makeshift club, Tim remained motionless. There was open space here, and he wasn't going to trap himself in a tight corner with a large, blunt instrument.

He readjusted his grip on the knife automatically when the man mentioned it. Where did it come from? Tim had no idea. It had drifted down on a lovely little parachute, seemingly from nowhere. "It's manna from heaven."

[the_hit_list]

Turning to see the source of the clatter, Tim is just in time to witness the end of another young man's stumbling about. He doesn't laugh. He was torn between being immensely grateful that most people don't know how to be quiet to save their lives and wanting to explain that, when trying to walk backwards in a stealthy manner, you really needed to lead with your feet. Lean forward, keeping your weight heavily on the grounded foot, and use the moving foot to check for obstacles and ground stability.

Because if you just stood straight and walked backwards, you would hit half your body against something. Like this guy just did.

Tim sighs. "Are you all right?"

[the_hit_list]

"You're welcome," Tim responds quietly, suppressing the urge to launch into a lecture on why accords with opponents can never be fully trusted, ever, with selected quotes from Batman. It'd be self-defeating though. Maybe he'll bring it up when he leaves.

Crouching down, Tim gets a better look at the water. It's shallow at the edge, but still running. Better this than a fetid pool. If Howard's throwing it all over himself, it isn't caustic or salted. Tim cups his hands together and scoops out a handful of water, bringing it up to his mouth quickly because it's already slipping through his fingers.

He drinks three handfuls before he pays attention to anything again. Tim still wants to stick his whole head underwater and gulp it down, but, even if Howard hasn't moved yet, he's not going to open himself up to drowning.

"Fish and ducks sound good, right about now." They actually sound delicious, and Tim likes sushi. He'd probably tear into a fish raw rather than wait to find a safe place to cook. He thinks, not for the first time in the arena, that he needs to find the saloon here and see if the kitchen is still functional. "Cat and rat... not so much, but..."

Tim lets the sentence just hang there. He knows that there are large swaths of the world where cat, dog, rat, monkey, etc are eaten, even considered delicacies. He knows that soldiers behind enemy lines have survived on bugs and grass, but that doesn't make it more palatable to someone who has always had enough food and never been more experimental than the occasionally quirky food combination at a fine restaurant. "If that's what we get, just lie and tell me it's venison, and I swear to you, I won't kill you before, during, or after that."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

The lecture would fall on deaf ears anyway. Just because Howard's more relaxed now doesn't mean he doesn't expect Tim to attack him, or that any deal they make is set in stone. He's been turned on too many times in the Games to believe that any alliance lasts longer than mutual use. He just hopes that by seeming useful once, he'll seem useful for the future, too.

He frowns a bit, grabbing water with both hands and splashing his face. He's ginger with the hole through his cheek and mouth and with his chin.

It always makes him feel...smaller, somehow, when people react to eating to survive with such disgust. It doesn't even occur to him to think about how strange it is to eat rats and cats. What goes through their heads when he talks honestly about what it's like to starve? Is it sympathy, or disgust when he talks about eating pieces of leather, about hunting down family pets and skinning and cooking them, about eating spoiled tupperwares of coleslaw and the sludge at the bottom of freezers that haven't had power in weeks, about saving a single packet of barbecue sauce for three weeks for a special occasion, about drinking saltwater and hair products and eating play-doh because nausea and sickness was a better alternative to hunger pains?

It makes him feel dirty and repulsive and so, so alienated from the people who haven't felt famine like that before.

"I'll hold you to that. The not killing me thing." He uses his fingertips to pull away some of the dead, now-waterlogged skin from the injuries. It's sloppy work, without a mirror. "And lucky for you, fish is the easiest to catch. They're weird fish, though. You have to watch out for their teeth."

He gets to his feet again, shaky but clearly ready to sprint away if Tim makes any sudden movements. He picks up the thermos and tucks it into the pocket in the front of his sweater. It makes him look like he has a pot belly, almost. "Anyway, finish drinking up and we'll get this pony show on the road. What's your name?"

[the_hit_list]

Yes, yes, he really is going to argue semantics, because, sometimes, talking is the best weapon that you have. Right now, it's the clear winner, as he's chatting with the zombie rather than being attacked. Which Tim knows that he would be, if he tried to use the knife.

"Howard?" The zombie knows another tribute's name and is his... friend? Guard dog? Tim wracks his brain to try to remember if Solomon Grundy's ever had anything resembling an ally. It's hard to visualize; he's usually so busy yelling "GRUNDY KILL!" and hurling large objects.

"I met Howard. He's - we're good," Tim hurriedly corrects himself. He does not mention where he met the other teen or how horrible maimed he is.

Bite marks. Human bite marks. Is this who ripped Howard up? How can it be anyone else, Tim notes grimly. He should see how far he can get the zombie to follow him, away from known potential victims. "I gave him my word that I won't hurt him. If this is his place, I'll keep out. Then we're good, too, right?"

[mediumdrip]

"Yeah. Embarrassed," Blaine admitted. He kept his eyes at the blade that Tim was holding. While it wasn't a very big one, he was aware that some people could kill with their bare hands. He didn't know if Tim was one of those people.

[the_hit_list]

Tim would need both hands to count off the martial arts disciplines that he knows. The knife was more of a hindrance, as far as he was concerned, because he'd have to keep his opponent from getting it. Missing a strike opens yourself up to being disarmed via umpteen different counterattacks.

However, it has made people keep their distance. Tim hated having to keep explaining that he wasn't going to gut anyone. "If it makes you feel better, I'm hard to sneak up on. Not that you need to, unless you think you're going to kill me. I wouldn't recommend it."

[mediumdrip]

"No, no, I wouldn't," Blaine promised. "I was just trying to find all of my friends." He didn't know who the sponsor item had belonged to and it had been a long shot to try to track down any one.

He really hoped that this guy wasn't going to punish him for that. He didn't like the idea of not getting back to Kurt.

[the_hit_list]

If Tim knew what Howard had lived through, there'd be no disgust towards Howard, but there would be for those in charge of his world. For Howard, he'd feel pity and sympathy. He may not have experienced that level of starvation, but he's already thinking about when Gotham City was thrown out of the U.S because they didn't want to deal with the earthquake cleanup. They were directing runaways and orphans stranded in the city to go live with Poison Ivy for heaven's sake, on her word that she'd feed them fruit and not kill them if they didn't walk on any plants.

It's not as bad as eating shoes, but, if the Capitol had the same kind of garden that she had, they'd already be dead.

"There's no point in killing anyone," Tim whispers. He doesn't really want to be overheard and hides his face with one last mouthful of water, "It makes you one of them."

Standing up, he's still looking longingly at the water, but he's had at least sixteen ounces at this point, in less than five minutes. He feels a little sloshy. "I'm Tim. Where'd you get the thermos?"