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

"Howard..."

He moaned the boy's name, a broken lowing, trying to get through to him, hoping for something - anything - in those milky eyes as he dragged himself across the ragged floor of the cafe, smearing wet across the dirt and rock.

Hoping... even though he recognized those eyes. Knew what they meant. What had happened.

And that it was his fault.

If he'd listened to Max....

"Howard,... please..." His fingers dug into the earth, grasping desperately - jerking when they came into contact with a hefty stone.

He pauses. Not because he recognizes Wyatt: the scent isn't familiar, if there's anything nostalgic about the man's smell it's entirely blocked by the pungent, tantalizing odor of life, and he can't see Wyatt's face in the dark.

He pauses because he's heard that name before. For a moment, the briefest moment, there's something that moves in those glazed eyes that don't blink anymore. Something that mulls the word in his mind and tries to link the pieces together into something that makes sense. There's some part of higher brain that hasn't atrophied yet, some squishy matter outside the base impulse of hunger, even outside fear, that wonders why that word, 'Howard', makes some neuron fire somewhere in there.

But it's swept away like a candy wrapper in a city gutter during heavy rain. Like a man lost at sea. It disappears into the dark, the emptiness of his pupils and the wake of his mouth as he lunges again for Wyatt's neck, this time desperate and intent.

He watched the moment linger in Howard's eyes, that brief pause, and then as it faded, sinking with the weight in his chest.

He had just enough time to wonder if maybe he should just let it happen. If it wouldn't be better that way - if he hadn't stopped Max, Howard wouldn't have ended up this way; Max wouldn't have to worry about him anymore - but then the boy was lurching forward, broken teeth bared and he didn't think anymore.

Only acted.

He threw up one arm over his chest, crying out as Howard's weight slammed into it and knocked him back against the cave floor. His other hand closed around the rock and swung.

Howard doesn't even see the rock coming and doesn't have time to react. One moment he's moving forward, then he's moving to the side, mouth going from tense and open to floppy and gaping with a dislocated jaw. He can't figure out where Wyatt went, and it takes a moment for him to realize it's because he can't see Wyatt when he's facing the wrong direction and sprawled on the ground, when Wyatt's smell is filling the whole tunnel.

He makes a groaning sound and pushes himself up onto his elbows. It's laborious. What did this guy hit him with? Howard feels something bulge and roll behind his eyepatch, and it takes a second for him to realize that Wyatt's bashed that whole side of his head in, that the little tether of the eyepatch is holding back an eyeball from falling from its socket. He can't hear from that side, either, although he barely gets a moment to contemplate not having senses on half his body before Wyatt makes his next move.

If there was any kind of justice, any higher power at all watching out for them, it would have ended with that first blow. The crack of stone against Howard's skull explosive in the tiny confines of the cave, cracking in Wyatt's ears like a gunshot. But of course there wasn't.

Now, even if he'd somehow managed to knock sense into the boy's head, there wasn't any way for him to survive. Not with his jaw hanging useless, the strange bulge under the worn eye patch, the dark fluid leaking down the side of his face and running from his eye like black tears.

There was no choice now.

The damage had been done. The only fair thing - the only right there was to end it.

Sobbing a hoarse cry, he hefted the rock again.

Howard gets only a second to try to crawl away from this Living guy that was more trouble than he's worth before the rock comes down again, like a hammer coming down on an egg. The sound is a crack and a squelch and a splatter all at once, Howard's skull bursting open and vomiting blood and brain on the dirt.

Some last impulse from the brainstem sends a twitch shuddering down his left leg, then he lies still, still half on top of Wyatt's leg, the blood that soaks into Wyatt's pants cold and sludgy.

Later, a long time later, somewhere in the Capitol, Howard wakes up in his bed, one hand to the unbitten, smooth skin of his neck.

Another crack, sharper and louder than the last and then - silence. Broken only by the wild pounding of Wyatt's heart and the ragged, wet breath rushing in and out between his lips.

And somewhere, far above, muffled by the layers of rock and earth, the cannon. The blast shaking dirt from the roof above, dusting them in a fine dark powder.

The rock tumbled from his hand, thudding to the floor.

"Howard..." He reached for the broken boy, pulling weakly, dragging him into his arms. "...Howard, I'm sorry...."

Without thinking, he rubbed his wrist over the boy's face, mopping at the stinking black blood, trying to clean him - trying to give him that much. His own pain, the milky blood running down his back, a distant worry, all but forgotten as he cradled Howard in his arms.

Later, that's how Maximus would find him. Clinging to the body and to life, in a pool of black and red.