(no subject)

[gluteus]

Who| Maximus and OPEN
What| Wyatt is injured, Maximus decides he's done with this Arena, he meets up with Shepard, they agree to kill some people, and... well. Clusterfuck happens.
Where| Desert to Candy then back to Desert Again
When| Final Week
Warnings/Notes| Death, Gore, Violence, Beheading, Bromance and Bad-Assery

[ooc: planned out threads will get individual sub-headers, but feel free to throw your characters in here if you want to be taken out by Max / Shepard / Both.]

He was starting to see things.

Not horrible things, not even disconcerting things. Simply chilling things. His son, running into the sand, out of the corner of his eye. His wife, standing at the top of the Dune. He knew they weren't real. No one could see the dead, not even here, but it didn't keep the chill from his spine. He didn't mention them to Wyatt, there was no point.

He kept his ghosts to himself.

He didn't know where R was. They'd gotten separated when the worms crashed through the world, and Maximus hadn't seen him again. He wasn't exactly torn up about it, though he slept lighter, now. Waiting. He and Wyatt took shifts sleeping - the rhythms off as the nights and days lengthened and twisted the world around again.

It was dusk when he woke. An endless dusk. And he was alone.

Comments

For Wyatt :: Injury Thread

[gluteus]

[the_marshal]

It hadn't been Wyatt's intention for Max to wake up alone. He hadn't even really intended to seek the voice he'd heard, so soft and subdued beneath the shifting winds. One moment he'd been in their little cave, Max's gentle breath a whisper behind him as he stood in the opening... the next he was out in the sand, head tipped against the grating wind, frowning. Sure he'd heard something. Sure he'd seen something. A dark shape slipping over the dune.

...A moment after that, and his certainty was validated.

It hit him from behind, the weight knocking him off balance, sending them both tumbling. Sand flew, claws and teeth and the silver of Wyatt's knife flashed.

He didn't feel the pain until it was over. Until his heart slowly began to settle, until he could hear the wind again, over the ragged rush of blood in his ears.

Until he could feel the blood running in hot rivers down his back.

Turning from the strange, alien body, he struggled back up the dune, the traitorous sand slowing him down - turning to red beneath him.

He painted the rock wall with it, sliding along the face, needing the support, as he made his way back to the cave. As his vision spun nauseously.

There was a moment, a quiet little voice, that asked him why he was even bothering. That murmured that this might be for the best. Reminding him that there could be only one winner and, at best, he would only be postponing his fate.

Already fighting with his body, the fight with his soul was too much, and he slumped weakly into the sand.

[gluteus]

There was nothing but silence and the quiet, whispering wind as he rose. His wounds now mostly healed save for the one in his leg, thanks to that strange gel of Wyatt's, there was nothing but a gentle ache as he quickly ran over his weapons and secured them to his belt, his robes. His clothes were starting to show heavy wear, tan with blasted sand except where they had been dyed brown with old blood. Everything secured, he pushed out past Wyatt's makeshift door.

Somewhere, faint, he could hear his son laugh.

He didn't want to call out for Wyatt, not when it was so quiet. So he merely pierced his lips and stepped further out, away from the rock and stone.

It was then that he heard the laugh again, this time behind him and far to the right.
He turned, heart lurching as he saw his son standing, blood strewn against the wall behind him. As he saw the figure slumped below him.

He did cry out Wyatt's name then, the scab in his leg threatening to tear as he sprinted forward, running to his friend's side.

His son smiled a he leaned down over Wyatt, touched his hat, and disappeared.

[the_marshal]

The voice in the sand had followed him back, shifting from Dora's sweet whisper, to Bat's easy drawl, to the low rumble of his brother Virgil. Howard and R. He ignored them. The pain, the throbbing, burning stab of it that arched along his spine with every step, a tether to reality.

He'd followed their siren call, and had paid the price. He would not fall for it again.

...But when Max's voice cracked against the rocks, that familiar roll of thunder....

What defense did he have against that?

His head lifted, a tendril of red rolling around his throat like a bloody tear from the bite in the back of his neck.

[gluteus]

He slammed into the sand next to him, arms already reaching, hand sliding behind Wyatt's neck to press hard against the wound there and keep it from bleeding.

"Damn it, Wyatt," he said, his voice shaking with... Anger? Or fear?

He didn't waste any time. He wasn't going to let Wyatt bleed out here, not when who knows what could show up at any moment, hungry for a meal. One arm behind Wyatt's head, the other snaked under his body as he pulled Wyatt up out of the dirt and into his arms. He grunted, a sudden warmth under the bandage around his leg, the effort opening the scab.

"Gods you are heavy," he grunted as he half-carried, half-dragged Wyatt back towards the shelter.

[the_marshal]

He half-expected claws again. Teeth in his flesh. Max's face to warp at the last minute into that leathery nightmare he'd left at the bottom of the dune.

But it was hands that found him, warm and strong and reassuring, even as one clamped down hard on the back of his neck and sent a bolt of lightening through his body. His teeth clenched, his fingers biting into Max,... but he tried to get his feet beneath him, tried to help as they lurched across the sand.

Tried to laugh, relieved, despite his weakness. Despite the pain.

"Promise me that ya won't write my epitaph, Max."

for Shepard :: meet-up thread

[gluteus]

[earthborn]

Shepard had damn well had enough. What she liked in a training exercise was rules; limitations on time, or at least a clear-cut goal beyond "win". One thing was for damn sure, whatever else this Arena had been, it'd stopped being 'fun' a few days ago. She was tired, had killed half a dozen too many minors, and was just about ready to scream. Hallucinations, was it? She couldn't tell if it was a psychological break or some kind of trick, but she'd been through worse. She'd get through it.

In this Arena and the one beyond where the barrier had been, there was one landmark that really dominated— the castle. The mountain. It'd be a magnet for anyone looking to end this, and she'd had enough.

Luck had her in decent supply, well-fed enough if thoroughly tired of lactose and sugar, and she had weapons enough to do.

And of course, luck would also have it that her first discovery would turn out to be Maximus. Screw subtle, let's have it: time to go hunting.

[gluteus]

Getting to the mountain had been hard enough - getting through the mountain was proving worse. Thankfully Wyatt had finally managed to fall asleep, so perhaps it was a good time to take a break.

He lowered the stretcher down off his back, setting Wyatt down as gently as he could manage, and letting out a breath when he realised he was still asleep. Good.

Maximus stretched, stepping out of the cave to glance around the strange, technicoloured arena. He'd half believed it to be a fever dream brought on by the poison, but no... it really was this pink...

[earthborn]

Pink enough to have rainbow swords. Pink enough to give them to angry madwomen, and to send them at your unsuspecting back. She didn't scream a challenge, only came up on the soft ground and swung, passage made noisy enough by simple haste. He was a target and he was at the choke-point; simple enough.

[gluteus]

He heard her before he saw her, his machete half draw by the time the rainbow sword (rainbow sword??) came slashing down right where his shoulder had been a second before. He could feel the wind in its wake.

But he was already weaving hard to the side, drawing the machete out the rest of the way, and then he was already on the attack - swinging the sword to meet, blade to blade.

All too happy to have a real fight to fight, finally.

for Wyatt and Howard (no Max) :: Grim Duty

[gluteus]

[the_marshal]

Max had finally let him be. With the redhead at his side, the partner Wyatt couldn't be anymore, Wyatt holed up where they'd left him, drifting in and out of consciousness.

He couldn't be sure if it was hours, or days, in between the rise and fall of his eyelids. The pain, the blood-loss, blurred it all together in a hazy fog, left him floating in a sea of shadowy faces and phantom voices.

He knew now that they weren't real. Knew better than to let him trouble him, so he simply lay there. Drifting. His father chastising him for leaving home, for not settling down, one minute; Howard pulling on him the next, moaning pitifully.

[content warning for gore, zombies, cannibalism]

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

There's hair in his teeth. Not just a single hair, but a clump, a mat, the kind of mess you'd get stuck at the bottom of a drain in a dormitory. It's blonde and bloody and it looks like really thin spaghetti and sauce from far enough away. Try as he might, Howard's clumsy fingers can't seem to get it out, so instead the clump hangs awkwardly out of his mouth, a piece of Julie Grigio's scalp attached.

He can't say he's eaten his fill, but the part of his brain that's still working can outlogic the hunger. He can't stay out here with the corpses. He won't be able to run away if someone bigger comes along. So he follows some impulse that seems to bubble beneath even the rawest hunger, some part of him that likes warm, that likes dark, enclosed spaces - that likes safe.

On his way up the mountain, which he climbs on all fours rather than hikes, he smells something fresher anyway. He slowly makes his way over to a cave, knocking rocks loose as he goes. Zombies aren't very good at stealth. He makes little grunting and whimpering noises as he does. It's not R's groaning; it's a smaller sound, less the earth shifting and more a kitten mewling. The eyepatch has stayed on his head, but the looking eye is glassy, the color of freezerburn over his brown iris. All the crawling has worn holes not only in his jeans, but in his knees, and the bone of the kneecaps chips and dents as he drags himself upwards to the mouth of a cave where a Living man sleeps, reeking of blood and weakness but also of flavor. Howard breathes deep, a rattle that makes the stray hair in the corner of his mouth waft outwards, and reaches over to tug at the hurt man's ankle.

"Buh. Boo."

Some part of him finds that funny.

[the_marshal]

He jerked beneath the touch, groaning roughly. "Howard... don't..." He tried to pull away, leg shifting weakly.

It hurt, but the pain was helpful. It dragged him closer to the surface, forced him to become aware again of his surroundings. To remember that figments of imagination couldn't grab a hold of him.

Realization hit him like a bolt of lightening.

"Howard!" He tried to sit up, to turn to look at him, but only succeeded in pulling on his stitches, ripples of pain stopping him in his tracks.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard hasn't refined his killer instinct, and it might be that which saves Wyatt's life. Rather than lunging for the neck, Howard goes instead for the nearest body part, ruled not by logic but by the scent of living flesh so close. And so, like a rattlesnake lashing out, his latches his teeth around Wyatt's Rooster Cogburn boot and chews.

The noises he makes as he does so aren't human, but the face is familiar. The expression, the ravenous hunger, this horrible fear of never having enough, is one that settles easily into his face. It's one he's worn plenty of nights, raiding the Tribute Center fridge and eating ice cream and marshmallows until he locks himself in the District One bathroom and tries and fails to stop himself vomiting it back up. Maybe the hunger is stronger, with the fear that drives it overlaying those mental scars. Maybe he wouldn't have fought it anyway.

His drool is bloody as he rips a tooth out on the leather with a crack.

for Shepard, Venus, Wyatt :: It's the Final Countdown

[gluteus]

Brothers to the End

[the_marshal]

He was dying. Slowly, but surely.

His wounds had opened, the stitches torn free in the struggle with Howard, and oozed freely - a milky, unnatural red. The flesh was discolored, swollen, and hot.

He could smell his own body rotting - that putrid sweetness - and knew the end was near. Felt it creeping closer with every boom of the cannon. Saw Death's leering grin in the shadows.

One thing kept him going. Kept him opening his eyes when all he wanted was to sleep - to drift away from the pain once and for all.

He couldn't leave Max. Even useless, even knowing there was no way he could help, he struggled on, determined to see Max reach the end. To know one of them had made it. Would go on.

Would see the Capitol got what it deserved.

When he heard the fighting - the grunts and the cries and the clash of blades - when he heard the cannons, so close together, he dragged himself to his feet, Max's knife loose in his fingers, and staggered across the sand.

[gluteus]

He was covered in blood.

He didn't even know whose blood it was anymore, but he was soaked in it - every time he moved he could taste the hot, metallic tang slip down between his lips and onto his tongue. He'd lost his headdress at some point, all of his supplies. All he had now was his machete.

His Machete, and Wyatt.

Everything ached, deep and shuddering, and it took everything he had just to keep walking forward. Had to get back to the caves to find Wyatt. Had to... had to end this. Finally.

Bring this sad story to an end.

[the_marshal]

He saw the figure in the distance, a shadow atop one of the dunes, and paused, wavering beneath the sun. Swaying gently on his feet, blinking as he tried to bring the shape into focus.

As he tried to determine if it was truly there... or just another phantom.

It was the robes that gave him away. Even as far away as he was, there was no mistaking the way they moved, billowing in the dry, grating desert breeze.

Max.

The cannons hadn't been for him. He was coming back.

Death's cold breath washed against the back of his neck and Wyatt dipped, listing to one side and let himself go, collapsing into the sand.

Finally.

[gluteus]

His eyes caught sight of Wyatt, just as he fell. Just as he gave in to gravity and met the earth, sand billowing around him. At first Maximus thought it might just be another mirage, another vision - but then Wyatt didn't move.

He let out a hoarse roar, machete in hand, and with everything left in him, the last dregs of anything that could possibly be left, he ran, to go skidding down into the sand next to Wyatt with a hoarse choked cry as he landed on his broken arm.

Re: for Shepard, Venus, Wyatt :: It's the Final Countdown

[celebrityskinned]

Venus can handle sticky. She can handle sand. The two combined, along with hallucinations and dehydration and her medication running out, on the other hand, is nearly enough to break her. Since running across Asha and escaping with her life, she's been hiding in a cave she found, eating the last of the doki-doki she killed and trying to sleep through the inexplicable sorrow that threatens to eat her alive.

She dreams of her parents, of her team. She dreams of an audience pelting her with rocks. She dreams of Enjolras' dead face staring up at her, mouthing 'I thought you were better than that'. And eventually she doesn't dream at all, because she sees these things when she's awake.

She knows she's losing her mind. She knows it's showing on her face, that the charcoal she's been using like linebacker paint under her eyes is smudged and smeared on one side, is mixed with blood on the other side. The cut on the side of her face is angry. Ugly. Her cheekbones jut, made stark by the water loss. Her Catwoman hood is torn to ribbons, and the sleeves that she cut off expose not just muscle but bruises. Her bare feet are chapped and split, making it painful to walk. She still swaggers, but now it takes effort not to wince.

This isn't the way she wanted to go, and so, she refuses. She goes looking for trouble.

The doki-dokis have gone silent. Instead there's only the supernatural hum of the desert, the sound of cicadas and the occasional howl of the coyote mutts. She doesn't bother to keep her katana in her belt, instead carrying it. She shades her eyes and sees two figures in the distance, and while she doesn't like those odds, she also didn't come here to win.

"Hey! You!"

She came here to lose beautifully.

[earthborn]

Well, that's just great.

Shepard's not in perfect shape herself; she's bruised and her velvet faux-armor is torn in more than one place, reduced to an unrecognizable, shapeless garment, grey bandages soaked brown-red and stiff.

But she wasn't dead yet, and she could count; it was just they last few in this, now. Herself, Maximus, his dying friend back there, and this bitch. Who was going to die.

"Was wondering when you'd show up," which was the truth. She hadn't known who else was left, but whoever it was, this was the only place they could have come, the only real end this could have come to. Her knives were in her hands.

"You're late."

[celebrityskinned]

Her eyes flit from Max to Shepard, taking in the injuries. She can't take them both at once, even though they both appear to be injured. The woman - the elevator woman - looks more aggressive, and that means she needs to be neutralized first.

"Fashionably," Venus calls, and her lips curl into a smile. She's kept them red by biting them, and between that and the rest of her face it gives her the appearance of a faded picture of a model in a subway, covered in vandalism and graffiti. Her hand closes over the shiv and she runs at Shepard, eyes to the crack in the earth behind her, and the ghost of a plan forms. She can separate Max and Shepard with momentum.

And, well, if she lands badly, at least a leap off a cliff is dramatic. She bolts forward, using her higher ground to propel her faster and harder, and as she pulls her broken arrow from her belt and as her bare feet pummel the ground, she braces for impact.

[earthborn]

"Nobody likes a kiss-ass."

Shepard catches the charge well, braced hands, even weight, and it's as good as it could be expected, for the incline and angle— but the footing is bad. It's dust and loost rock and she slides, steps back for a better place and finds nothing but air.

"Shi—" and over they go, tumbling as much as falling, and the landing is with Shepard under her, all sharp stone and loose gravel. She won't let get for death or hell on earth, and the grapple pulls them over and up, rolling, sliding, down the loose, steep cliff-face until they hit another drop, and the weightlessness is momentary and gasping. Shepard lashes out with one foot, yelling defiance and rage, and catches stone rather than flesh, spinning them wildly.

CRACK!

It's sand, and it's soft enough, but not at that velocity. The surface might even be called even by ordinary standards, but she hit it badly. And with Venus' momentum throwing off Shepard's own, it's at least two ribs, broken, bent sharply inward. She inhales to scream and can't find the breath, struggles for several moments with spotted vision and the blind breathless panic that comes with choking. She's not lying on the ground, the sand is stars and cold vacuum and she's falling, twisting, breathing desperately after air that's thinner and colder every moment and she is going to die. She tastes blood and the deep stretched-skin blue of the desert sky, and knows that it's not the same. It's not real, this isn't there.

Move.

Move, damn you!

Don't just lie there and contemplate your collapsing lung, get up! Do you want to die here?! Breathing through the agony, she rolled over, struggled for purchase and found her knees. This was bad. This was very bad. Fucking Maximus, where was he when she needed him?