thearena | (no subject)

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

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.

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.

He stared up into cloudless sky, drowning in the endless blue, breathing shallowly through his mouth. A shadow fell over him, blotting out the sun and he blinked, once... twice... and found Max, leaning over him.

Another blue horizon waiting in his eyes.

His fingers slipped along the blade, splitting under the edge as he gripped and pulled it closer.

"...Brothers..." A whisper, as if from a distance, as he nodded. "...to the end."

The tip of the knife bit into his side, a faint pain, so small, almost beneath notice.

"Hold it together, Wyatt," Maximus grumbled as he bit through the jarring pain of his arm, lancing up his elbow and straight into his neck. He dropped his machete into the sand and snaked his good arm behind Wyatt's neck instead, pulling him back up. "We're almost there, you have to hold it together."

It was hard to breath, tight and shallow and painful against his bruised, broken ribs, but he raised his head, searching for somewhere to take them out of the sun.

"Just gotta wait it out, now," He murmured almost to himself.

He didn't see the blade in Wyatt's hand.

His eyes widened, dark pupils dilating slowly into great, deep rings. His head lolled against Max's arm.

"Now, the end's... here, Max."

They wouldn't come for him, he'd known that from the first. ...But he wouldn't have made it even this far without Max. This was his victory.

This was the least Wyatt could do. What he wanted to do.

His fingers tightened, the handle slipping against his bloodied palm.

"I'm proud...to have known ya."

A small confession. Just before he pushed.

"Wyatt." Max's voice was stern, though it was belied by the shake, by the way his hands trembled as he tried to pull Wyatt further up, leaning the weight on his side.

"We came all this way. Just hold on. Hold on a little longe--" It was then that he saw the flash of silver in Wyatt's palm, and he nearly dropped him in surprise. "Wyatt, no--!"

Too late. The blade disappeared into his side, his body arching in pain, a sharp, shuddering grunt escaping past his lips. A gasp as the knife pulled free and dropped wetly to the sand.

Then a strange serenity slipped over his face, his body relaxing as his life drained away with his blood.

His mouth twitched, broken lips pulling at the corners.

"Got... one thing right."

His arm was already rushing out but the blade was in then gone, Maximus losing both his grip and his balance before they fell hard into the sand.

"Damn it, Wyatt!" Maximus cursed, kicking the blade away and trying to find the wound with his fingers, trying to press them close even as his arm screamed in pain.

All he found was hot, sticky, steaming blood and he grit his teeth so hard that his eyes found the only moisture left in his desert-baked, sandblasted body.

He drew Wyatt up as close to himself as he could while he desperately tried to stop the bleeding, knowing he could not. Knowing even as he won, that he had lost. The fingers embedded in Wyatt's side shook, violently, as he was completely unable to keep them steady. As he told himself he'd watched a hundred thousand men die.

(But family was always worse.)

He stared up into the fathomless blue, face already paling, breath going faint.

His fingers worked under Max's (a wet squelch), and pulled them free... patted gently.

"...Only... one." He inhaled. Exhaled. "I'm gonna miss...."

And went still, the last lights fading from his eyes as Wyatt slipped away, Max's name still on his lips.

The canon sounded, echoing through the arena like a thunderclap, shaking him down to his core. "You better be on the other side, Wyatt," He breathed in his ear, his throat starting to close up. The moisture in his eyes that was anything but tears starting to make his vision blurry.

He knew they were coming. Could hear the sound in the sky, blades chopping through the air with a whump-whump-whump-whump. He registered it, dimly, along with the booming voice, the annoucement of his victory.

But he'd failed. All he'd wanted was to get Wyatt to a safe place, to get him stable, and then... then he was going to turn away and slit his own throat. Wyatt was a better man than him. Could do more. Could change more.

All he could offer anyone was death.

He doubled over Wyatt's body with a choked and desperate sob, as they came for him. As they tried to pull him away, and met angry fists and dark curses as he clung desperately to Wyatt's corpse. Too addled by weeks in the desert to think straight.

It was the third tranquilizer dart that finally took him down.

Edited 2013-08-11 02:17 (UTC)