Since it fell unto my lot, that I should rise and you should not

[the_marshal]

WHO| Wyatt and OTA
WHAT| Missing the peeps that haven't come back, side-eyeing the hell out of the clinic
WHERE| Tribute lounge
WHEN| After the clinic opens
Warnings/Notes| Probably some PG-13 language.



He'd known it would be hard, being outside. He wasn't fool enough to think it would be easy to watch the games, to see people he knew suffering - to watch them struggle and fight and die.... But he hadn't realized just how hard it would be to wait. To realize slowly those same people - his friends, people he cared about - weren't coming back.

It had always been immediate for Wyatt. He'd always woken up to find them gone. It had always been someone else - an escort, a stylist, another tribute - to break the news.

Now he was the one doing the telling.

Holliday and Pruna hadn't come back. Neither had Hawkeye.

It made him angry. It made him sad.

It had guilt churning bitterly in his guts.

Pruna had helped him win the last arena, had saved his life, at the expense of her own. Hawkeye had saved both his and Howard's the arena before.

And now they were gone. No good deed left unpunished by the Capitol.

Being dragged down to the clinic by his escort had been a blessing in disguise really. Arguing about whether he was sick (he wasn't) and whether they'd be sticking him with anything (they weren't), made him feel a little better. (Reminded him that there were things he still could do. He wasn't helpless. It wasn't hopeless.)

Slipping onto a stool at the lounge bar, he ordered himself a stiff coffee and rubbed idly at his throat, trying to work away the unpleasant feel of that big blond bastard's hands on him.

Comments

Oh boy, someone sure doesn't know this yet.

[hit_girl_mindy]

Mindy hated being on the sidelines like this. It was really all she could do not to constantly be in the Training room, practically living there. The up side was there was no Azula, which was good, but now there was also no one to talk to there, as Harley tended to sleep in, and preferred doing something crazier later that was NOT training. So she took a break from this, towel around her neck, and walked over to the lounge and got herself a fruit shake, not expecting to see Wyatt there.

"Hey," she said, holding up her hand as if to say she wasn't armed. She may not have liked betraying Sandy in her arena, but how she'd taken Wyatt out was by and large her least favorite moment of all, even with an arrow sticking out of her shoulder.

"Enjoying your freedom?"

Which part?

[the_marshal]

Wyatt turned. He glanced at her raised hand, but there was no animosity in the blue gaze that settled on Mindy's face.

"As much as a man can," he replied.

Behind him, the screen above the bar replayed the latest footage from the arena - tributes sweltering the heat, impossible beasts lurching across the broken ground - dampening the mood.

"Yerself?"

Re: Which part?

[hit_girl_mindy]

Bad joke, she supposed, or maybe he just didn't get it. In any case, she put her hand down and her drink to her lips.

"Toning and crunches. I lost myself a bit of a fight. Don't want that to happen again." You could still see the fading black eye and a few cuts on the girl's face. Evidently Mindy saw no reason to get herself fixed up.

She looked up at the screen, wincing. "How are Ellie and Clementine doing? Do you know?"

[the_marshal]

Wyatt arched a questioning eyebrow, but remembering well Mindy's headstrong opinions from the last time they'd talked, all he offered was advice.

"Mind where an' when ya pick 'em," he muttered, turning back to the bar as his coffee arrived. "Capitol don't take kindly to that sort'a thing."

He took a sip from his mug, testing the temperature before he took a mouthful.

"Ellie's hurt, but alive." He hoped to get Joel some supplies as soon as he could. He looked at Mindy. "Don't know a Clementine."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"The peacekeepers were watching us when it happened, actually. I think they figured as long as no bones were broken, they wouldn't catch shit about it. We ended it on our own." She made a face, making it obvious she did not come up the victor in the fight. "Why I'm going back there more often, of course."

She took a drink, taking in the update. "Good. Holding out some hope for Ellie there. I saw that Joel got fucked up. That damn kid again. I'm glad Pruna messed her up in that last Arena. I only hope Clementine lasts. She seems like a good kid."

[the_marshal]

Wyatt had to give her that. If the Peacekeeper hadn't pulled him off Aunamee, it wasn't going to end any other way than with one of them in the ground.

He might have said as much, but the mention of Pruna stopped him short.

Face darkening, he looked up at the screen. Tried not to dwell on it.

(One child, among the so very many, lost, for the Capitol's pleasure.)

"Hope, an' help where an' when we can. That's all we can do."

[hit_girl_mindy]

Mindy knew enough about their bullshit rules that they were never going to have a full on fight all their own. That, and honestly, she'd been outmatched and she knew it.

"Yeah, sure. Why'd you make the face? I know Pruna died already, but you know her. She'll bounce back. Hell, bet she' in her room playing with that duck right now."

[the_marshal]

His head dipped, face disappearing beneath the dark brim of his hat, and he took a long, deep breath before he spoke again. Straightening back up on his stool as a matter of will.

"She hasn't come back," he told her. "...An' the way they're talkin', they don't expect her too."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Hasn't come-" It dawned her and her face tightened a little. She was a friend of hers, and more importantly, sandy's girlfriend. This was going to hit the girl hard. Why the fuck had it been Pruna, of all people? She was a more than capable fighter! Christ, the capitol was full of assholes.

"Jesus," she said, shaking her head. "I liked her, the bastards. Do you know if anyone else is gone?"

[the_marshal]

"I liked her too," he murmured, sipping from his cup more for something to do with his hands than because he really wanted it.

He'd ordered it just a few minutes ago, and he'd already lost his taste for it.

"She saved my life in the last arena, helped me win."

She'd been rough around the edges, sure. Half-wild and more than a little dangerous when she wanted to be, but she'd been a decent kid.

Hadn't deserved what they'd done.

"Holliday's gone, Hawkeye too."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"I never would have expected that from her," Mindy said. "She always seemed like the type of girl who was out for her own, aside from Sandy. But that just goes to show: don't think she ever trusted me."

Which, actually, Mindy respected. She wasn't someone who trusted easy, and why should she? Everyone was eventually going to try to kill you, right? But to take her away...

When the other names were mentioned, Mindy looked sad. That was rare, to see her looking that way, but she couldn't hide that now.

"Both of them helped me in my times in the Arena. Holliday stopped me from starving, and in the Arena Hawkeye fixed me up after I'd gotten my shit scrambled up. They're both too good for this place but shit. I'm really going to miss them."

[the_marshal]

"They were good people, better than the Capitol deserved."

Better than any of them had likely deserved.

He took a deep breath, and let it out as a long sigh.

"Ain't gunna be easy on Ellie when she gets back. She and Hawkeye were close." He looked at Mindy. "She's gunna need her friends."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"I liked him too. I bothered him, like most adults when they meet me, but he needed a little smart mouth like me to get him through too, I bet. I was even trying to push him and Holliday together. So much for that."

She took another drink, looking at it sadly. "It's not my week, or ANY of my friends. I'll be there for Ellie, though she's got a pretty big network now."

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland's one concession to whatever this sickness is that still hasn't shaken off is the jacket. There's no reason not to rest, not really, but long years have taught him to react to stress by working, moving toward some goal. There's no goal here and now, nowhere to work his way to, but he's been trying to keep moving all the same.

On one of those useless, restless circles he feels his throat start to itch. Rather than break into more of that damned coughing he sits at the bar and orders some tea.

The man sitting near him's familiar. Roland's seen him a couple times when visiting Susannah. He takes a slow sip of his tea, then asks the all-important question. "Been keeping track?"

No sense in explaining what of. What everyone's keeping track of - death. More death.

[the_marshal]

It took Wyatt a moment to place the face. He'd seen him about in the 10 suite, comin' and goin' with Susannah more than not, but the man didn't usually look like death warmed over.

He guessed the clinic had some use after all.

"As best I can," he replied with a small nod, by way of greeting. "They don't make it easy."

The way the feed jackrabbited from place to place, shifting from face to face, from horror to horror.

[ka_sera_sera]

"They don't. It's all such--" Roland grimaces, shakes his head. The show's the whole point of the thing, he knows that. "There's only so long I can listen to it. I'll get back to it soon enough." He rubs the two fingers of his right hand over the side of his face, sounding tired.

"Are they usually so... so excited about all of it?" He knew the theory behind this whole games thing, of course. Hearing it in action is something else altogether.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt's expression was sympathetic, understanding the misery, and feeling it too.

"It never stops," he sighed. "This one'll end, an' they'll dance around the victor for a bit -- then another'll start an' they'll move on to the next one."

A hellish merry-go-round.

[ka_sera_sera]

"A cycle." He shakes his head, almost begins to speak, then interrupts himself with a hurried slurp of his tea. Cough held back a moment longer, he tries again. "I'd ask how you bear it, knowing what's coming. But I don't think there is a way. Still, I probably ought to ask if you've got any advice."

[the_marshal]

"It don't get any easier," Wyatt told the man honestly - watching him with a small, concerned frown. "All ya can do is, find somethin' for yerself worth carryin' on for. Anger, pride, love... whatever works for ya."

[ka_sera_sera]

"Used to be duty. If I'd come across this place... before, it would have been my duty to get sorry bastards like us out of it. But I did wish to get rid of duty, didn't I? Guess I got what I wanted." Oops, someone's getting maudlin. Who needs alcohol when you've got that most dreaded combination of isolation, fear, and boredom? Both, apparently, do the same job.

He shakes his head. "Cry pardon. I'll leave you to your drink." Roland waves his hand at said drink, turning back to face the counter a little more, rather than the other man. If he'd known he was going to spend this day turning into one of those who stewed in his miseries and sent them spilling toward every stranger who seemed inclined to listen, he might have just spent this day in his room, nevermind that he doesn't think he could have stood one more second of that, either.

[the_marshal]

"It's alright," Wyatt said with a shake of his head. "Been there enough times myself."

The worst he thought, was the inability to do anything about it. A man couldn't even work off his ills here. Nothing to busy a man's body with when his thoughts got too loud.

There was no choice but to stew in it.

"Wyatt," he offered, introducing himself with a outstretched hand. "Wyatt Earp."

[ka_sera_sera]

"Roland Deschain," he answers, holding his left hand out to shake. "I know your name through two of those people I'm trying to keep track of, though I think one made a better impression than the other. Cuthbert Allgood? About this high, black hair, always grinning like he's laughing at you?" If it seems like Roland's strangely eager to talk about him, well, he probably is. There's been very little news of either Cuthbert or Susannah, and he's been able to think of little else.

[the_marshal]

There was a small shift in Wyatt's face at the mention of Cuthbert. A reservation slipping into his eyes, a tired wrinkle at the corner of his mouth as he sighed.

"Yeah, I know him," he admitted, taking his hand back at the end of the shake. "Susannah too, an' to be honest, I ain't all that sorry she's the one in my district."

[ka_sera_sera]

"I'd like to clear that up, if I could. Or at least, explain whatever impression he gave you." Roland straightens, feeling like he's got a little more energy than he did a moment ago. He knows well enough why. Though Earp won't be in arenas, trying to make Cuthbert some allies - or at least fewer enemies - feels productive. It feels like he's doing something. "He has some considerable trouble keeping control of his mouth. What exactly was it that he said to you?"

[the_marshal]

"How long ya got?" Wyatt asked, slanting Roland a wry look as he lifted his coffee.

After taking a mouthful, he shook his head, chasing away the half-joke before it became too serious.

"We had a difference in opinion as the games," he explained, nodding toward the screen. "I kill because I have to, 'cause it's necessary, but I take no particular pleasure in it an' try to avoid it as I can. Cuthbert... he told me he was excited. Couldn't wait to get in there."

Even now, having spoken with Susannah, having promised Max, it was still difficult to peel Bert's smile off Kennedy's face. To stop hearing his voice from Cuthbert's mouth.

"I took offense, he took offense, an' it's been dirty looks an' name-callin' ever since."