thearena | [Closed]

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Who| Daniel Jackson, Aunamee
What| Daniel's luck runs out
Where| Frontierland
When| Backdated some time after R's death. Archaeologists are apparently a love sick zombie's worst nightmare.
Warnings/Notes| Character death, violence. Will add more if it's needed

He hadn't expected the piranhas. In hindsight, it seemed obvious that of course there would be piranhas.

The zombie had tumbled in, taking Daniel's glasses with him and clawing a line of fire down the side of his face before he disappeared into the water with all the grace of a stone. A moment, right as Daniel had begun to worry, the water started to boil, fins and fish bodies flashing. Daniel had floundered for a moment, looking or anything, a rope or something to try and get the Tribute out. He had settled on tearing part of the bridge railing off, trying to feel around in the water, hoping to get the Tribute to grab onto it.

As much as Daniel wanted him gone, he hadn't wanted him dead.

Nothing had caught the railing. Nothing had come up.

Now Daniel sat down heavily on the curb, back on dry land. He stared blearily at the blurry shape of the bridge someways away. He'd killed him....again, if the zombie thing was real. A shiver went down his back. He hadn't meant to do that, just to get him away. Instead, Daniel had put him through something that might be worse than just dying, which was being eaten alive.

His stomach gave a flip flop at the thought. Daniel took a breath and rubbed at his face with a palm, eyes closed for a moment. Now that he wasn't fighting a corpse off, he felt tired, limbs heavy and aching, and aged about ten years for good measure. Each place the Tribute's nails had dragged gashes into him, his arms and neck and face, stung and now, had begun to burn. Probably infected.

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He approached with a limp.

(Step. Slide. Step. Slide.)

It hadn't been very long since Punchy snapped his ankle. Inflammation meant that he couldn't even take off his boot. He had fought against the leather, against the sweat and numbness building in his toes, but it was no use. The cracked rib was also a nightmare. Every time he breathed, his chest gave him a slight pinch that soon evolved into a roar of agonizing electricity. He had played things slow before. He had taken his time.

No more.

"That wasn't your cannon," he said as he walked towards this new man. He dug the blunt end of his spear into the ground like a walking cane. His brow was tight with worry -- and curiosity. "Are you all right?"

At the sound of the voice, Daniel looked up from where he'd buried his face in his hands. He squinted. The slim, blurry shape walking towards him sharpened, but only a little. Without his glasses, everything had gone fuzzy. He could tell someone was there, probably a man, and that there was something wrong with his leg from the way he walked. The man stopped, leaning on that walking stick of his.

"No. I guess I got lucky," Daniel said, unable to hide the bitterness. Sure, he was alive. He'd just killed another Tribute, and he'd done it in one of the worst ways he could think of.

Was he all right was a good question. On multiple levels. Night was falling and either it was suddenly cold, or chills had begun to set in. Daniel remained sitting, letting his arms drop stiffly to his lap. Better to skip around the truth for now. "I'll be fine. Thanks. What happened to your leg?"

Aunamee was not opposed to trickery when it came to killing other people. In fact, he preferred it. That wide oh mouth of surprise. That second when their eyes flicker from uncertainty to fear. But in front of the cameras, there was a level of professionalism to be upheld. Too many of his kills had been quick betrayals. Too many people had watched him work.

"It doesn't matter."

His legs carried him forward. He stopped just short of Daniel, the spear resting in his right hand.

"We're getting close to the end."

He let the insinuation hang on his lips. He wanted Daniel to be the one to say it.

It was the shock from killing the Tribute the way he had and exhaustion. That had to be the only explanation for why it took a moment to sink in. It didn't matter, why wouldn't it matt- oh shit. The other guy was suddenly closer than Daniel was comfortable with, and now that he was, that walking stick? That looked a lot like a spear.

Daniel stumbled to his feet, hand grasping behind him for something. What he came up with wasn't anywhere near as impressive as the piece of rubble he'd had earlier: Daniel winced mentally as he mapped it within his palm. Only half a brick. And crumbling at that.

If the Tribute was any good with a spear, chances were he might just tickle him with the brick. Or miss completely. Knowing his luck, that was exactly what would happen. Daniel licked at suddenly dry lips. "We're not the last two. We can't be."

Even as he said it, he couldn't be entirely sure. He didn't have the total number of Tributes entered in the Arena, and there had been times where he'd missed the fallen announcements at night. But he hadn't seen any sign that Punchy had died, or Lindsey; they couldn't be the last.

It was a thought that hadn't quite occurred to Aunamee, that they might be the last two people alive. He had assumed that they were near the end, not at the end, but what if they were? The idea was enough to fill his body with hope, elation, energy. It would be so wonderful if the only thing standing between him and freedom was this man.

Look at him. He was so tired. So pitiful.

But he knew that Daniel had to be right, that they couldn't possibly be the last two, and so he let the feeling wash away down his arms and into his fingertips. Where he held the spear.

He shook his head.

"I could make it very quick," he said, his voice soft, his brow knotted with concern. Another step. "I could make it so that you wouldn't feel anything."

Daniel's eyes had a slightly squinted look as he tried to keep the near-sightedness from being a problem, body practically a livewire of tension. His fingers clutched at the pitiful brick, the edges going into his palm and fingers. The fact that they were likely not the last two didn't seem to put him at ease or make him back off. That spear looked especially deadly in his hands.

...Was he actually offering to put him down? The shock was intense and sudden. All he had to do was lie down and wait for it to be over.

The Tribute made it seem like a perfectly reasonable, humanitarian thing to do. To end it quick; better quick than in fear and drawn out pain, right? For a insane moment, Daniel almost, almost believed him. He really was tired of all the running and scraping by. Part of him was tired to the bone of going through the Gate and wondering what he'd find when it came to Sha're.

The archaeologist took a step back before he'd even realized it, anything to put distance between him and this Tribute. Until now, he'd played it sort of safe, but he'd also took some risks with the other Tributes, letting himself get closer and in at least one case, disarming himself for them. He hefted the brick, not hiding that he was going to use it if he had to. "You're insane. We don't have to play along. They won't have a game if no one were to play."

"What do you think they would do to us," he asked, "if we didn't play?"

Aunamee had thought about it, day and night. He had thought about it while staring up at the ceiling in his suite back in the Capitol. He had thought about it on the colder nights in the arena, wrapped in the tatters of his bloody cape.

"If we all held hands around the Cornucopia, do you think they'd take us home to our warm beds?" He couldn't disguise it, how his voice shuddered with the words. His own implications grabbed at his throat, reminding him of how helpless they all were.

"Do you think they'd apologize?"

Daniel's laugh had a tinge of panicked exasperation to it. "How could it be that much worse than what we're being put through now?"

Perpetual fear, being hunted, starvation and dehydration, sickness, on top of grisly deaths. Sounds better to him already. At least they might have a chance of saving more people, rather than only having one come out. Or if Wyatt was right, doing nothing else but going through the cycle again, if they could reverse death like the Goa'uld.

Daniel had begun to edge away. If he could make it from this walkway and to the intersection, he had more of a chance. "No, but maybe they might start thinking of us as people instead of characters in a show. We can't be maneuvered wherever they want us."

Aunamee was playing a role. He was the resigned follower, not the sadistic killer who killed because he could, who spit into peoples' faces while he stuck knives into their guts, who felt the most perfect exhilaration whenever a life ebbed under his hands. For the sadistic killer, Daniel's words would mean nothing. For the resigned follower, they would be a blow.

But Aunamee felt it as a blow, those words, the reminder that he was trapped in a cage and that even though he didn't mind killing, even though he liked it, he was doing it for someone else's sake rather than his own. He was a character in a show, an instrument in an orchestra, a grain of sand in an hour glass. He was not the writer, the conductor, the steady hand that dictates when time starts or stops.

"Death would be easier for you," he said, bitterness and shudders escaping through his teeth. "In death, no one would ever maneuver you."

And then he lunged, swinging the blunt end of the spear at Daniel's legs, attempting to knock him to the ground.

The Tribute was pretty much gone. Insane, crazy. There was some sick truth to it. Death would make things easier; no more living like a hunted animal. The Games would be over - if death was the real deal here - he wouldn't have to ever have to worry about the Goa'uld or whether they would find his wife, or what would happen even if they did.

Daniel had thought - hoped - he'd been discrete in sidling away. Keeping the Tribute talking, distracting him, had seemed the best idea. Talking, and a lot, was something he could do. Except for the part where he'd pushed some buttons or the man was done talking. What happened next took Daniel completely by surprise.

The guy was fast. A lot faster than Daniel had guessed, because he was practically on him the next moment. Too late, he stumbled back, away from the arc of dark brown that came hurtling at him. Daniel swung at the Tribute's head. His fist went wide as the spear's end caught the archaeologist in the legs with a dull crack. The archaeologist went down in a tangle of limbs. He lashed out with a leg, trying to kick out at the Tribute's ankles and knock him down.

Edited 2013-06-02 08:37 (UTC)

With his weakened ankle, Aunamee went down easily. His knees buckled and the world rushed around his ears like a waterfall. It was disorienting, nauseating, maddening, and Aunamee could already tell that he was weaker than he should have been. But there was a part of his mind that was still sharp, and as he went down, he straightened the spear so that he could use it catch himself.

He straightened the spear so that its blade was pointed downwards towards Daniel's splayed form.

For a moment, a rush of relief and elation went through him; if he could just knock him to the ground, knock him out, Daniel stood a chance even with that spear. If he couldn't get away, there was a good chance he'd have to kill him-

The Tribute managed to catch himself with the spear, and then the end was coming down at him. What happened next was so fast that he felt the thud reverberating through him before he felt the pain.

The spear shaft was sticking right out of his stomach. Daniel coughed, a wet one, and tried to pull at it.

"That's good," he said, a soft murmur. Sometimes he couldn't help himself. It had been too long since Aunamee pulled off a long murder. Even Howard's death paled in comparison to some of his older ones, the way he could gently tease a person so, so slowly to their death. He wanted that with this man right now, wanted to tear him apart in degrees and kiss the sweat off of his forehead as he weakened, but with the cameras catching his every move, he needed to restrain himself. At least a little.

"This is an incredible moment for you," he said. He used the weight of the spear to straighten himself up, pressing it deeper and deeper into Daniel as he went. "This is something new."

He brushed his foot up against Daniel's face. It was almost a comforting gesture, like fingers stroking a cheek.

"I am sorry."

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