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WHO| John and Joan
WHAT| Joan's death.
WHERE| Arena 2
WHEN| Now! Uh... before the joining together event.
NOTES| Snakes. Lots and lots and lots of snakes. And Joan being badass.

They'd stayed in one place too long, and they'd worked through most of their supplies- and with the odd rumblings, John was fairly certain it would be a good idea to find somewhere with a good solid foundation. He hadn't seen a sandworm yet, but it made a horrible kind of sense. He didn't need to see one to know they were out there.

It didn't take them long to pack up. John insisted on carrying the tent and the larger items because it felt like the polite thing to do, and they trudged through the dunes towards the mountain, keeping an eye out for any tell-tale tremors.

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Joan carried food, water, medical supplies, which wasn't all that much considering their food and water was starting to get low. As they walked she glanced up at the sky. "Hopefully we'll get another..."

...care package was how that sentence would have ended, if she hadn't misjudged her next step. Her foot slipped on the downward sloping sand, and she grabbed for John, trying to regain her balance.

John threw out an arm instinctively to try and catch her even as she grasped for him- and suddenly they were both tumbling down the dune, much, much steeper than he'd realised. He was far too distracted with their freefall to notice where they were falling into, but he vaguely registered a hissing, rattling sound...

Their freefall slowed, they were sliding to a stop, there was this sound...

Two sharp, quick, agonizing pains, one in her ankle, one on her calf. Joan cried out, twisted around and clawed her way backwards as she saw the tangle of snakes, two heads in mid-withdrawal.

"John!" she barked, a warning, her voice tight with pain.

John saw the snakes almost at the same instant. Christ, there was a whole writhing pile of the damn things, and he was toppling forwards-

"Joan!" he yelled back, twisting to try and fall back and avoid them- but there was a darting flash of red, yellow and black and pain as one of the vicious creatures struck his leg. He was bitten, he knew it, right through his costume.

"Get back, get behind me," he shouted, staggering backwards himself. One knife. He had one bloody throwing knife and there had got to be dozens of snakes...

She saw the snake strike at his leg as she forced herself back up the dune, her bitten leg already fast on the way to uselessness. She threw a glance over her shoulder, saw the first aid kit in the sand, and began scrambling toward it.

"Did it bite you?"

He staggered back away from the snakes- who seemed, for the most part, relieved to be left alone, though they hissed menacingly. He was quickly losing feeling in his leg- always his leg, wasn't it?

"Yeah. Leg. Going numb. Joan- keep... keep backing away from them. Animals here don't behave like they should, they might still come after us..."

"That's hardly fair," she said, joking through clenched teeth. She grabbed the handle of the first aid kit and continued working her way up the dune. She didn't stop until she was almost to the crest and her leg refused to work altogether. There she rested, her heart and respiration rates starting to climb, everything starting to look a bit too bright, a bit washed out.

She opened the kit to prepare the anti-venom.

"Not fair, no, but... probably more entertaining," he gasped, staggering up the last few metres of the dune despite the rapidly developing numbness in his leg. Sparks started to dance behind his eyes.
"Did they get you? I can't- the kit, you've got it, right? There's anti-venom..."

"Got it," she said, and uncapped the syringe with her teeth. "I need to inject this in the thigh of the leg where you were bitten. Pull your pants down on that side."

Her voice was hard, making it clear that it was an order, not a request, and leaving no room for debate.

Doctors really did make the worst patients, but John also knew that he'd be completely useless to either of them without that injection. He fumbled with his belt and yanked his costume trousers down as instructed.

"You didn't tell me. Did you get bitten?" he repeated.

She had the shot ready, so when his thigh was exposed, she steadied it with one hand and quickly stabbed it with the needle in the other and depressed the plunger.

She drew it out, shakily replaced the cap, dropped it, and laid down on the sand.

"Yes," she said, her voice already breathy from a creeping weakness, an inability to inhale fully. With one trembling hand she drew up the hem of her chador to show him the red bites on her ankle and her calf, just starting to swell.

"Twice."

He hissed out a breath and dragged his trousers back up, crawling over to the med kit to look through for the second dose.

They'd had two doses, at least.

He rummaged through the kit, only just stopping short of tossing everything else out into the sand, eventually looking up across to her. There was no second dose. They must have lost it in the fight with the creature- and Joan must have decided it was more important to give it to him than take it herself.
Exactly what he would have done.

"Damn you," he muttered, dragging the rest of the kit over to her, fully aware that it would be completely useless. The Gamemakers had no reason to put in a non-lethal snake when a lethal one would do, and nothing he had in the damn medkit would be any help. "Only one dose in the kit. I wish I didn't know you did that on purpose--"

He scanned the sky desperately, hoping to see a parachute- a timely gift from Sherlock. He'd look out for Joan, wouldn't he?

"I had to. You're the one who's most likely to survive this thing," she said, her voice going soft. It made perfect sense. But she knew, and he knew, that she would have done it regardless. And that he would have done the same for her, had he been the one with the syringe.

She closed her eyes, tried to breathe, and cried out as the poison worked its way through her, the pain snarling along her nerves.

Edited 2013-08-05 06:31 (UTC)

He scooped her up into his lap to hold her still against the spasms and to keep the bite lower than her heart- and partly because he remembered being completely certain he was going to die alone, the first time, a lifetime ago in a very different desert. Whether Joan had a similar experience in her world he didn't know, of course.
He hoped not.

"You're going to be alright," he promised her firmly as he tore off a strip of her chador, wrapping it around her leg just below the knee- just tight enough to restrict the lymphatic flow. "Alright? Listen to me. We'll get a handy package any minute now and I'll administer the antivenom. And even if that-- You'll wake up in the Capitol, and it'll be over. Okay? Breathe, slowly."

His leg was still horribly numb to the point where he wasn't sure he'd be able to dash over to collect a sponsor gift in time to save Joan's life, but he wasn't going to tell her that.

Edited 2013-08-05 06:47 (UTC)

There was nothing he could do to save her, and she knew it. She was very grateful for him holding her, being there with her, because she was in pain, and scared. She'll wake up, that's what he said, but what if he was wrong? What if she was dying, right here and right now, and would never wake up, would never go home.

Would never see Sherlock again.

She held on to his shirt, her hand balled into a fist, and tried to breathe slowly, breathe through the pain, keep from crying out. It was no use. She strangled a scream as her body convulsed again, her heart rate going faster, her breathing trying desperately to compensate for the lack of oxygen in her blood.

He wet his lips, anxiously, and held her close. No aid was coming- he knew it, really- and he was hyper aware of how this must look to the cameras, to the fans back in the Capitol, to Sherlock. It was an unwelcome distraction, making him double-guess himself constantly.

"It's okay," he assured her, quietly, laying his hand over hers as it gripped into his shirt. He glanced around, to make sure no-one was taking advantage of their vulnerability to stage an attack. "It's okay. You're doing fine."

She had no capacity to think of how this might look to anyone, of course, and had no ability to analyze the situation outside of the searing pain and him trying to see her through it. She turned her face to bury it against his chest, to muffle her screams and hide her tears. She was gasping now, the spasms of her body easing purely due to her muscles losing the ability to do anything at all. That included the muscles of her diaphragm. And her heart.

As her gasps grew shorter, less frequent, her fingers curled in his shirt opened, and her hand slid down to rest limply against her side.

He heard the canon fire in the distance, and a cold, quiet fury settled in the centre of his chest and solidified there. He looked up, imagining he was looking straight into the eyes of the Gamemakers- Joan's murderers- and only after a long, silent moment did he gently lay her body down on the sand, easing the agonised angles of her limbs until she might, if observed from far enough away, look like she was sleeping. They'd be coming to get her, soon.

He gathered up the contents of the medkit and the supplies in single-minded determination and stood, his jaw clenched tight, waiting to be driven away from the body- but nothing happened. No-one came.
So he buried her. It wasn't perhaps the most efficient use of energy, and he didn't have anything he needed to keep her body safe from hungry animals- but it was a gesture he felt was important. He'd do his best to make her death worth something.

Shouldering the remnants of their supplies he turned towards the mountain and began to walk.

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