A Six-Inch Valley in the Middle of My Skull [Open]

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

WHO| Howard and anyone in Arena 1!
WHAT| Howard is literally on fire.
WHEN| Week 2
WHERE| Arena 1, in a cave in the gingerbread mountains.
WARNINGS/NOTES| Immolated teenagers.

Howard tries to wait out the night before he starts working on his plan, but after what feels like days of staying still, he finally decides to just go for it. He's done all the preparation - shaving the heads of his matches into itty bitty bits, mixing the pieces with powdered sugar, making little pouches out of chopped-up strips of his sleeping bag. The Sponsors, and other Tributes, have been kind to him; he has a medical pack, plenty of fire-starter kits, and all his goodies from the Cornucopia, as well as the doki-dokis from Holiday. This is the best set he's been for an Arena, head trauma aside.

And he has a knife, from Aunamee. He tries not to think about that. He tries to only use it and not imagine it plunging in and out of his flesh, drawing hot blood that cooled on the snow, that grew cold only slightly faster than his body. He tries to only see the clean blade and the matches and the fabric of his sleeping bag, bloodless, simple. He furrows his brow and rubs at his blind eye before he puts his eyepatch back down. His headache has graduated to a migraine that blots out the vision in his good eye, but he knows that won't get better until he can try to sleep off the worst of it - and that's not happening until he knows this works.

It's time to start playing with fire. He gets his lighter out, starts a flame, and holds it to one of his little bags of sugar and matches-

There's a flash of light that temporarily blinds him as the fire spreads across the cloth so much faster than he anticipated. He yelps and barely tamps down a scream as fire race up his oversized sleeve, spreading over the shoulder of his red hoodie. The sugar that's soaked into his very clothes makes it spread faster. His nostrils flare as they're filled with the smell of caramel and burning hair.

He's been on fire. Stop, drop and roll. He actually remembers what to do this time, and he throws himself to the ground and tries to smother the flames out. In the night, the fire lights up the little gingerbread cave he's been hiding in like a beacon.

[OOC: Feel free to come put him out or use this as a chance to attack him!]

Comments

[blondevigilante]

It's the fire that grabs her attention. Even from the gingerbread village she could see it up in one of the caves. It's not the flames of a desperately hungry Tribute trying to cook one of the local creatures; it's something worse. She died in fire once already and isn't looking to repeat the scene, but she isn't willing to let someone else suffer that same fate, so she takes off at a run towards the cave.

Howard. Howard on fire and trying to smother the flames. Stephanie pulls of the small cloak that was part of her costume and throws it on top of him. Her bags are tossed to the ground as she pulls out a water bottle. Water is valuable, but so is Howard. A bit of dirt is tossed onto the areas the cloak can't smother and she hopes the fire didn't reach his flesh.

"You're out! You're out!" Howard!"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

He doesn't know what's happening, between the dark and the panic. There's suddenly someone on top of him, and he lashes out with the knife. It makes a whistling sound as it cuts through the air, as his attention is divided between trying to fight the threat of the flames and this new person immobilizing him, yelling at him.

It takes a second to process what she's saying, and then he stops struggling with her.

"Auh, auh!" He squirms a bit and then lays, panting, on the ground, no longer burning, the flames dampened except for the slight smolder on his hood. "Steph?"

[blondevigilante]

"Y-yeah." She's breathing hard from the rush of adrenaline. Her hands hover over Howard, not sure if he'd allow her to touch him and check for injuries. "You lit up the cave with that, uh, what were you trying to do?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Just, you know. Playing with fire." He cringes from her and examines the burn that runs from his wrist to his bicep. It hurts like a mother. "You're not going to..."

He knows it's stupid to ask her of all people, but he does anyway. "You're not going to kill me, right? Now that I'm vulnerable?"

She didn't last time, but this game is different. He knows Tim Drake's on the other side, dead of poison.

[blondevigilante]

She could only frown as he asked his question. Really she shouldn't be surprised that Howard would be so paranoid, but it still hurts that he would ask. "I should just so you can get this taken care of." Stephanie opens her bags to see what her med kit had. "But, no, I'm not going to kill you. Rip off your sleeve."

There's not much to the kit, but there is some sort of gel that smells medicinal. "Hopefully this stuff works on burns." She scoops up a small amount and looks at Howards arm. This would put him at a disadvantage if the gel didn't help. Worse if the burn became infected. What the heck had he been thinking?

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I'd rather not. I'm pretty sure they're not bringing me back if I do. I don't have a tragic love story like you and Tim." Howard can't hide the bitterness and resentment in his voice - or that little crack of pain that comes from a deeper place than his burns. He's far from over Eponine.

He rolls up his sleeve rather than ripping it off, although it's more painful this way, and holds his arm out to her. Either injury or nervousness makes him tremble, his wrist divining over her palm.

[blondevigilante]

Stephanie has to hold her tongue on that one. It wasn't her idea to create this farce of a relationship, and it certainly wasn't her idea to use it as some sort of Capitol bribe, or whatever was going on. She forces a smile as she rubs the gel over Howard's arm. "You have the underdog thing going for you, and everyone loves an underdog."

She wipes what remains of the gel back into the little tin to save for later; she'll hide the tin in Howard's things before she leaves. "Thirsty? I have, uh," Steph pushes around the items in her bag. "Coconut water. Or water that's just flavored like coconut. And dried fruit. A veritable feast really."

[bratwonder]

Damian much preferred the night to the day, especially in this godawful place, but it seemed like there were no shortage of interruptions, either. There were those "screens" that kept flashing on and things like... this. Whoever or whatever caused it was painting a target on themselves and the responsible thing to do would be to check it out. Hopefully he'd get there before anyone else got there, but he couldn't say he'd be too disappointed if he had to fight anyone along the way.

It was also entirely possible that this whole thing was a trick, though, meant to grab someone's attention. So Damian, dressed in an unfortunately frilly outfit, didn't charge right into the cave. The fire had already dimmed before he got there, so he approached the cave silently instead, listening in for anything that might be off. Once he was pretty sure no one was going to jump him from behind, he walked in, calling out:

"Are you still alive?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard's breathing and slight whimpers probably answer that question. He stays still in the dark, knowing that he's given away his position and status as alive already, but not sure what to make of the ten year-old who's entering the cave. He holds his knife closer, even though tensing the muscles on his forearm sends electric pain up through his elbow, up past the burn.

Finally he says, "I'm a friend of Tim Drake."

[bratwonder]

Ah, yes, just the name he wanted to hear. He frowns, but he decides it's better to try and keep his mouth shut. It was fine if he thought that Tim was the reason he wouldn't try to kill him.

...well, no, it's not fine. It's embarrassing and insulting. But correcting him might be more trouble than it's worth.

"Relax. I'm not going to hurt you." He sounds as unimpressed as ever, but he means what he says. "What happened?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard doesn't believe Damian, if only because the words "I won't hurt you" are both cheap and common, especially among liars. He rolls his fingers over the handle of his knife.

"What do you think happened?"

It smells like burning hair and flesh and sugar in here. Howard winces in the dark and pulls his burned arm closer to his body, reaching with fingers that don't touch to hover over the wound.

[bratwonder]

...okay, maybe he should have been more specific. Impatiently, Damian amends: "Were you attacked? Or do you simply have no idea how to handle fire?"

It might not be obvious from his tone, but hey, if he was attacked, he'd be more than happy to go beat up whoever did this to him. After checking on the burns, of course. Totally.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I was playing with matches, asshole." Howard reaches gingerly to the ground and finds the lighter, flicks it on to light up the cave slightly, light up his face made grotesque by the slashes Karis put upon his jaw and cheek. "And I'm not dead, so I guess things went okay for me."

[undercoverprincess]

Fire. This place was both the best and the worst place to set a fire. If you could control it, then you could be a deadly opponent. But if you couldn't control it, then you were deadly, but in an entirely different way. Cindy wasn't going to be attempting a fire herself, not with this much sugar soaked into her clothes (and hair, and bags, and everything else). Plus those screens gave enough light as it was, whenever you stood near one.

But she was still hesitant when she got to the cave. She had a hold on the rapier she picked up, and she made her way slowly into the cave.

"Olly olly oxen free..."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard's no longer on fire. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean he's hidden in the dark, either. Just because he can't be seen doesn't mean he can't be heard, and he's panting raggedly and making little whimper sounds he can't seem to keep down. There's a burn that goes from his wrist to halfway up his bicep. The smell of burned clothing, skin and hair fills up the cave.

His hand tightens around his knife. He stays still for a moment, then realizes that this probably won't help him.

"Hello?"

[undercoverprincess]

She doesn't know why she keeps going into the cave as the smell gets worse. The smell of human hair being burned had always made her ill, but this was almost too much. Shit, this whole thing was awful. Disgusting smell, enclosed spaces...

She tapped the rapier she has with her against the wall of the cave. "Hey there," Cindy called out. Wait, that voice... that voice...

"Howard?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard's voice is small, laced with cracks like ice before it caves in. "Cindy?"

He doesn't trust her. He doesn't know her well enough to trust her. But she's far from the last person he'd want to run into out here, and if he has her pegged right she might even want to help.

He's burned his arm and his ear. There's a patch of hair that's completely burned off. Most of his sleeve cannot be salvaged.

[undercoverprincess]

"Jesus, kid, what did you try to do, blow yourself up?" Slowly she came into view, and while she didn't put the rapier away, she wasn't keeping it in an attack position, either. You just couldn't trust people in the arena, even if you'd talked to them before. The scratches on her face had taught her that.

"Seriously, what the hell. I know I hate it here, too, but there might be better ways to get out of this instead of being burned to a crisp."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"It wasn't on purpose." Well, the fire was, actually lighting himself up wasn't. Howard coughs a bit and brushes some cinders from his sleeve. "But if I was going to suicide on TV again, I'd probably do something dramatic like that."

He flicks the light on his lighter - holding it far away from those too-long sleeves - and brightens the cave slightly. His face has scratches on it and a bandage on his head, plus an eyepatch. He looks like he's already seen trouble.

[keep_surviving]

Diana sits just inside the cave, deep enough not to be spotted from the outside but not far back enough into it make it feel like she was once again trapped in those damn mines.

When they'd found the cave the idea of staying here had made her sick. But logic had won out over deep seeded resentment and she'd hidden her trepidation with annoyance.

She waits on one of the rocks, arms around her bare legs, waiting for Howard to come back, if he comes back. She supposes that's a possibility, Howard not returning. She could listen out for the canon. But it might not even be for him if it does go off. He might have just ditched her.

Eventually he returns though. Sporting burns and injuries he didn't have before. Diana pushes herself to standing and walks over to help him with the load of supplies. She waits until he tosses them in her direction, she doesn't want to touch him, Howards like a wild animal when he's injured and those burns look nasty.

It doesn't make sense to ask what happened.

"What went wrong?"

Then, after a moment. "Are you alright?"

It's getting hard to separate the injuries on Howards body.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard's got a burn on his wrist that goes up to his upper arm, and a significant portion of the hair on the back of his head has burned off. His sleeve is all but destroyed and he smells vaguely of caramel.

And Diana's not exactly the face he's happy to be coming 'home' to, so to speak.

"Nothing went wrong. I just got struck by lightning. What does it look like went wrong?" He flops down in the back of the cave, then breaks off a piece of gingerbread to chew on. "You didn't use up all our supplies, did you?"

[keep_surviving]

Diana's expression is unchanged despite his sarcasm. "I meant, is this something you're going to be doing every time you try to set off a bomb or did you do something stupid?"

Running a finger under the hem of her suit near her leg to stop it riding up, she steps a little closer and points to his arm. "What do you want to do about that?"

She rolls her eyes. "Yeh. All of them. Totally gone. Sorry about that."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"There's a...bit of a learning curve," Howard admits, but then scowls. "I'll just throw some antiseptic on it and wrap it up. The burn ointments these things have are usually pretty good."

A medical kit from Sherlock. How bizarre. Howard sits down near the stuff and looks for something to patch himself up with.

"No one came by here, right? You didn't see no one?"

[keep_surviving]

"How much of a learning curve?" She hovers around him, thinking about the mess his head is at this point.

"I didn't see anyone. Or hear anyone." She shrugs. "That's doesn't mean much though." As Howard probably knows better than she does.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"The 'long sleeves and lighters aren't friends' learning curve. On the upside, if we can set anyone else on fire, they're fucked." He bats a hand at her, trying to get her out of his personal space.

"That's a good sign, unless someone's staking us out and waiting until we're asleep." He sighs and licks some sugar off his fingertips. "Serial killers and mutant animals. Feels like home."