thecapitol | (no subject)

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Who|| R and [Semi-Open] – PM me if you want to bump into him so I can write a prompt.
What|| R wakes up to realize he’s a zombie all over again and the Cure, in fact, wasn’t a cure after all. He’ll be in a funk. Mostly he’ll be blocking traffic (cue finding him in the District 4 shower, creepy-staring, or else where). Basically R needs cheering up, pep-talks, even the awkward ones telling him he’s better off as a zombie.
Where|| Around the Tribute Tower and Training Center. Also District 4’s suite.
When|| After reviving in the Capitol from Howard mercy-killing him and before the next Arena. Basically a catch-all.
Warnings| Zombie references, depressed zombies.

Prompts in the comments for each character. Heads up I may be slow posting, so a post per day or every other day (so backtag central?).

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R gets some lurking in while he can: it’s not his favorite activity as a zombie, but when you’re a walking corpse, there’s not a lot of other options out there, hobby wise. Usually there’s just “groan” and “bump into things” and right now those just remind him of what he’s lost. He’d had pink fingers and toes, red blood that ran into of oozed, hair that didn’t have the consistency of straw. He hadn’t worried about body parts falling off. Lurking, at least, doesn’t feel bad. If he turns of the lights and closes the shower curtain around him, ignoring the dusting of teal sparkles, R can almost pretend he’s not trapped in his own rotting corpse. Again.

He loses time in there, staring at nothing in particular, letting his mind drift like debris on muddy waves.

R’s still in there when Hawkeye decides now’s a good time to use the shower, the zombie hunched over only inches away from the curtain.

He hadn't seen anyone wander the halls in the past minutes. He didn't hear the showers running, didn't see anyone and their towels waiting by the doors to be let in next. Years of a trickling stream and no sense of privacy in the tent stalls still made it so Hawkeye felt a surge of unrequited glee at the thought of a warm, long shower. He even sometimes remembered to lock the door behind him, and those days were the best. And so he looked around and saw nobody but himself was thinking the same thought of getting clean, and Hawkeye gathered his towel and bath things and nearly skipped down the hall.

And when he reached for the doorknob to turn, it was cool and there was no light pooling from under the slit of the door where it hit cool tile. Hawkeye was alone. He slipped in, closed the door with a click, flipped on the light. Slipped his shirt off, hung the towel on a rack. Mussed his hair and let out a mouthful of lyrics, "If you are but a dream, I hope I never waken." And silly that the shower curtains were drawn closed and there was some smell of humidity or somesuch, but Hawkeye slipped off his trousers anyway and went on singing. He was just in his shorts when he strolled to the curtains and pulled them back in a lavish, swift motion and was met by a zombie.

"Ohn--" and Hawkeye stuffed his knuckles into his open mouth to keep from shrieking. He just stumbled back some steps with his heart on pause and stomped his feet in place like a teenage girl who had found a spider in her bedroom. Lord, what'd he do to deserve this? Why h-- "Did you think you were going to get a show?" Why him?

R didn’t even think to flinch back, staring at Hawkeye with a dull look of surprise over his muzzle, his mouth hanging open in a gape.

“Shhh…show?” R slurred. What? What show? It took a few seconds of delayed reaction for him to realize that kind of show. The, uh, skin routine. He’d seen a few stripper zombies in his day. They hadn’t been prone to feet-stumping, unlike Hawkeye. “No. Thought…empty. So…using it.”

It took some more staring and gaping to realize he knew this guy. The fact was familiar, although it’d been twisted into a pained grimace. He hadn’t fed on him. But R distinctly remembered sinking his teeth into this man’s flesh and hanging on like some rabid dog, hoping he’d be able to drive him off. It’d probably be too much to ask for Hawkeye not to recognize him, even with the whole zombie thing going on. A look of embarrassment crawled onto R’s face as he wavered on what to do. Options, options. Did he have options? Shuffle out? Move over? What was the polite, least awkward thing to do in this situation? With another zombie, it’d be easy. Stare, groan, then bump into each other (maybe) and go on their separate paths.

He didn’t think he should try that with Hawkeye.

All this exaggeration on his part and Hawkeye couldn't even breathe heavy, and so he docked some points from his mental tally of histrionics. He nearly mirrored R in a sense- mouth agape, hunching over, and now he was grasping the extended towel over his chest as if that would somehow help anything. He didn't want to explain anything about shows, or showing, and so he latches on next to what the dead guy says- mostly just because he's saying it, not roaring or bellowing like when he had taken his bite.

The thought sparks something in Hawkeye, and he huffs. He huffs and racks the towel again because if he had to turn tail and run, he wouldn't want to somehow trip or slip on it. Then Hawkeye holds up a finger- index, by the way- about on height with his shoulders, extends his hand an inch or so towards R and thinks that he's got nothing to fear here, minus the stink. And he couldn't know who's armpits it came from, and so he couldn't be offended enough by it to leave. He was going to shower, damn it, but first-- "Watch me," he says, clipped and sure. Hawkeye points to the light switch. He steps back. He opens the door and doesn't care that he's half nude, and steps out, door still open, finger pointing at the switch. Knowledge was power, or something. "Light on means somebody is in here and doesn't want to be disturbed," Hawkeye instructs and steps back in. "Light off means somebody might be in here and already be disturbed." And suddenly he thinks he shouldn't let this kid go for disturbing what was supposed to be a carefree afternoon, so he chirps up, "Does the light hurt you?" Partly because he's honest to God curious- the dead stayed dead in his world with the exception of that one Christ fellow.

R watches what Hawkeye does next: if he had functioning lungs, he’d be holding his breath, waiting to see if he bolts or goes on the offensive because zombies traditionally don’t do too well in enclosed spaces. The man holding out his hand closer to him indicates either he wants him to wait, observe or he’s…offering his hand to get chomped? R’s relieved that he hasn’t worked up enough black drool to start dripping down his chin, thank God.

He waits, observes, swaying gently from one foot to the other as Hawkeye points to a lightswitch like R’s never seen one before. It’s mostly back where he comes from, power is intermittent. Generators work (sometimes). Solar panels are – were – everywhere. It just meant it took longer for power to die for good in places. So yeah, he remembers what a light switch is. It’s just…of all the things he was expecting, a lesson in bathroom etiquette wasn’t one of them.

“Oh,” R grunts, wondering if he should feel embarrassed he didn’t know that part.

He pauses at the question, trying it over in his head and wondering if Hawkeye is wondering about the state of his eyes, if it’s some kind of weirdly placed consideration for the Dead or he’s legit asking if light is a threat to a corpse. If it was, zombies wouldn’t have swarmed across the world.

“Don’t…think so…” R heaves his shoulders in a shrug. His eyes don’t dilate or contract with shifts in the light: they’re the same shape they were when he died, whatever color the irises had been now leeched out until it’s the same flat, scuffed-silver color of every other corpse he’s run into. His eyes are locked on Hawkeye, eyebrows slowly drawing together. “Why…ask?”

Okay, he can understand the sass well enough. His heart's still racing a mile a minute. He thinks closing the door with a boy inside isn't going to win him any favors and so he doesn't, and when R grunts out his answers Hawkeye nods like it's the most fascinating thing he'd heard all week. He's sure he'd appreciate the trivial fact more if his wits were working, but beggars can't be choosers. And truthfully, Hawkeye's already amazed enough that R can think well enough to reply. Color him embarrassed if the notions he's carrying ever got out. "Well see, we both learned something today," he says. Strangely, there's no trace of humor. Strangely, Hawkeye's nearly sure he's being sincere and doing a fine job of not being a git when the marble eyes just try to stare him down. It was like staring back at a stuffed bear in a museum, and Hawkeye knew what the bear's bite felt like.

All around an unpleasant situation, and now he's even feeling chilled, so he rubs his arm. "You're the first undead that I meet in my life," he confesses, volume rising like it was some big deal to finally let it out in the open. In the open, in the showers. Oh, that's fun. Hawkeye's in no way hysterical- but by all accounts he figures he should be, and now he's trapped himself in a whirlpool of a place where the only outlet was to be loud. He sounds calm enough to be talking to the neighbor's boy, even. "If you were anybody else I would have asked you to shelf the National Geographic, tuck it back in your pants, wash your hands and scram. What else do teenage boys do alone in the dark?" Can he even say that to a zombie, did zombies even have or remember the-- anyway. "It's a myth, you know, it doesn't really make you go blind." It was the silver color that made him say that, honest.

When Hawkeye takes in a breath again, he rolls his eyes back in time to gesture how well aware he was at having gotten off track. He nods his head again, wills himself to look R in the eyes soundly and truly, and says, "I didn't know if light hurt you, and maybe that was why you were in here. If you would have said that it did, I would have flicked the lights off because I'm not here to hurt anybody. I just want a quick shower, and not because I want to put my eyesight to the test. Only now I'm babbling because I opened the curtain and found my private time wasn't going to be so private. I was curious, that's all." Finally.

R should hope he’s the first undead – encounters with his kind usually don’t end well because someone almost always dies and there’s screaming involved. Meet a zombie isn’t something you want on your bucket list.

“I…whgh-at…?” R slurs more than usual, struggling to keep up with Hawkeye’s rapidfire conversation here. National Geographic? It took him awhile – actually, it was a miracle at all he could dredge up anything – to realize what he meant. That. Something he’s sure M actually tried in the dirty bathroom stalls back at the airport. R, on the other hand, hadn’t felt the need. Before the Capitol, he hadn’t taken off his clothes before. Ever. Too big of a chance some body part would get inevitably pulled off. He’d been vaguely afraid of the idea of checking to see what had and hadn’t rotted off, too. “Not…doing that…”

He wasn’t sure if he just wanted to clear the air or there was an undertone of defensiveness in his groaning. He’s still trying to work through the embarrassment, actually.

R makes eye contact, or the next closest thing he can do with a zombie’s lazy eye, and wonders what he did to deserve this kind of consideration, especially after he took a chunk out of Hawkeye back in the Arena. He’s starting to get the impression that he isn’t dealing with the average guy here. Curious. Julie had been curious, after she got over the internal freaking out, the will I be the next group meal for these corpses. R’s eyes drop down, going from Hawkeye’s face down to his chest, where he knows his heart should be. He heaves his shoulders in a shrug.

“Give…to you,” R lumbers his way out of the shower, this awkwardly stiff motion to get one knee up and over the edge, then the next – all, hopefully, without tripping. He makes it, somehow. “There…?”

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