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Who| Daniel Jackson, Eva, R but OPEN to any others
What| Daniel's headed for an "I told you so" from Eva and finding out R is a "smart" zombie, which makes their interactions in the Arena have some added fridge horror.
Where| The park
When| Shortly meeting Ele (Sometime after his death in the Arena but before the victor's crowning.)
Warnings/Notes| No idea yet, will change if anything comes up

He had barely begun to put a dent in the place, but it already felt much too small. Like he was that rat pacing back and forth within its cage, nosing about at each end hoping each time something had changed. Uneasily, Daniel hurried through the crowd, eyes on the ground as he thought.

For the moment, there wasn't any way out as far as he could see, short of chance or the Gamemaker's wishes or finding a way out through the Districts. Not unless he stumbled on a Stargate and threw his chances to fate. Or found a ship. That was about as unlikely as a Goa'uld turning over a new leaf. Screwed just about covered it.

Daniel kept his eyes away from the buildings, the stalls. He couldn't bring himself to watch the rest of the Games. Which was almost a moot point when the Capitol was fond of keeping it on as many screens as possible. Now citizens could catch almost every minute as they went about their business. Wasn't that considerate?

Even then, he couldn't avoid it completely. There was a flash at the corner of his vision as he entered a park, and Daniel turned to look for a moment. There on the screen was what looked to be a tally, and a face flashed by as one of the deceased. Daniel recognied the blond hair even with a crowd in the way:" Draco Malfoy, the kid that had petitioned to become a citizen. Daniel felt a chill go down to his stomach. He hadn't seen Draco come out of the Arena. He hadn't even known he'd gone in, but apparently the petition was something of a pointless formality.

There had to be somewhere outside of the tower that had some peace and quiet, as Game free as possible.

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Eva likes the garden here. Her District duties keep her from ever establishing a permanent residence in the the Capitol, so she doesn't have a little patch of earth for herself, but she's had Avoxes show her what to do to keep the flowers here safe from weeds. It's a calming exercise, to use her hands to pull plants up by the root, to pretend that with each one she's casting away she's freeing the garden up for a little more.

For flowers to grow, weeds must. There is only so much space in the ground, and only so much space on the victory pedestal.

She sits up when she hears footsteps across the soft grass, then stands as she notices it's a Tribute. She may tease them, but she tries to show them at least a little bit of respect, and not in the fawning way that the fans do. She hopes to simply acknowledge that they suffer, like she did.

Respectful doesn't mean gentle, however, or kind. "You made it back." She pulls a handkerchief from her breastpocket, letting the folds of her dress fall back over her knees, which are now flecked with dirt and dew from the grass. There's an antler in her hair, but other than that she's fairly subdued today, in a red dress with pockets and a scarf with peacocks embroidered in it.

"I wasn't sure if you made a good enough showing to get renewed." She starts to clean her hands.

Daniel could have almost walked right past or over her. It was only when she seemed to excuse herself and detach from the plants like some ancient, forgotten earth spirit from any number of culture's mythology. The antler was a nice touch in that direction.

He slowed, glancing at the dirt on her knees. He would never have figured Eva into gardening. For a moment, he had to wonder if she recognized him. She had to have seen so many go into the Arena.

Daniel smiled tightly. "Like a bad penny. But I wasn't trying to make for a good show for you all."

"Oh, believe me, I know. I catch the early morning runs, you know, three a.m. slots. They usually air the snippets that aren't juicy enough for the rest of the program and believe me, your 'we don't have to play the game' speech got a bit grating after the seventh or eighth time."

She smiles to the side, only showing the teeth on her left. She has a bit of a lazy eye that wasn't there last time, and a faint, healing set of stitches up in her hair line. She folds the napkin into perfect quarters and tucks it back into her pocket, then folds her hands in front of her and puts one foot forward without weight, gesturing with it lightly to indicate they should walk together.

The fact that he's smiling is a good sign, even if it looks wrong, like it belongs on another person's face. He isn't even bothering to sugarcoat the lie of the expression.

"Have you eaten since you came back?"

The smile was tenuous at best. It faded fast. Daniel was silent for a moment, studying her and unable to hide the faint disguiet or disgust. Even if she was being sarcastic, that wasn't funny. Not at all. People had spent their last moments, terrified or driven to kill. IN some cases, some Tributes had gotten off on it. "I don't care if you're joking, but you should know better than anyone that the Arena brings out the worst in everyone. And not just those within its confines."

It wasn't hard to miss the faint lines of stitches. It looked like Eva had either fallen into her share of trouble or gone looking for it.

"Not really. It's kind of the last thing on my mind."

Eva's eyelids move in opposition to her eyebrows, giving her a a comical expression of bemusement. "Dr. Jackson, if you continue to mistake my levity for a lack of empathy, you're going to run out of outrage for me very quickly."

It's a frustrating thing to be condemned for setting up a barrier between yourself and the siege you've lived in for most of your life. Eva doubts she'd still be alive if she weren't able to adapt and pretend it's all a story on a particularly gory TV show; but then, it doesn't provide any comfort to think she's becoming like her captors.

She turns back to watch where she's walking. "The Games this time were a bit more difficult to watch, admittedly. I don't appreciate that torture's gone from a curiosity to a tactic to get yourself renewed."

"Humor's completely inappropriate here, even if it's your way of dealing with the Arena, especially to other people. And you know better than that," Daniel replied. He didn't even think Jack would be so flippant about this, and Jack was the king of inappropriate sarcasm and bad jokes at the worse possible times.

Putting that barrier of humor or acting like it was a show was downplaying the entire problem, especially from a Victor, someone who knew personally what it was like. About the same as putting your head in the sand, he thought.

Daniel glanced out back the way he had come, wondering whether he really was ready to talk this over with Eva or not. As it went, he didn't know her at all. One conversation before the Games didn't count. And she definitely wasn't his first choice. She'd made hints as if she wasn't really that good a Capitol citizen, but sometimes he couldn't tell with her. "I'd think every Game was difficult to watch. Added torture only made it even worse."

"Humor is very, very low on the long list of things that are inappropriate here. Forgive me if I don't strike it from my repertoire to balm the entry wound to the stick up your ass." She makes a gesture as if she's brushing dust from her shoulder.

It stands in contrast to the way her face darkens, like an overcast day giving way to storms. She changes on a dime like that, flipping between blasé and so clearly bitter, like a banner in the wind with each side a different color.

"Every Game for thirty-seven years, I was charged with the task of telling desperate teenagers that they stood a chance. And nearly every Game, I got to watch their faith in me disproved. 'Difficult' isn't the word for it." Her lower lip furrows. "The torture isn't the worst part of it, it's just another ugly reality. It isn't new, either, just quite a lot more prominent than it was. I wish Tributes would just do the sane thing and kiss some ass rather than try to disguise their bids at revival in cruelty."

For once, being called a tight-ass didn't bother him at all. In this case he'd happily keep that stick right where it was. He gave her the long, impatient look reserved for the most pig-headed, pain in the ass Marines, the ones who didn't give a damn about anything else but what they could shoot or what the Gate might have to offer besides a threat. It was shortsighted, ignorant. He didn't have patience for either.

"Turning it into a case of 'well, it's not as bad as everything else' is a mistake. The little things make a difference too, humor plays down and diminishes the Games. Or their trauma."

Having to act as a mentor for thirty-seven's years worth of kids was a special kind of hell. Daniel wouldn't wish it on anyone. What he couldn't understand was why she chose to make a joke of it at all. Maybe it was how she got by, but it insulted all those Tributes who died, the Victors and herself. "Probably because you can pull all kinds of people from all kinds of worlds now. Violence and sex sell in a lot of places. I'm not surprised some would turn to it."

"Oh, put a lid on it." She shakes her head and pats the antler back into place. If she hadn't slept with it in earlier in the day, it would be held tight, but as it stands even walking loosens it enough to roll uncomfortably on her scalp. "We're not going to agree and you're never going to understand the art anyway."

She pauses just a moment, wincing in the sunlight. Since her fight with Billy - since she split her own head to frame him for her temper - bright lights have given her headaches. She supposes she deserves it, temporary as it is; soon enough, she'll see a Capitol doctor and they'll fix her up back together, and ask her if she wants to finally get rid of that scar on her mouth they botched so many years ago.

And she'll say no, because how else is she going to remember that she's been here thirty-eight years if she doesn't have a physical token, and then she'll laugh at how absurd the words that came out of her mouth are.

Same as always.

"It's a bit depressing, don't you think? We pull from all these worlds and we don't get the titans. There's no Prometheus bringing us fire. We haven't tapped into anything greater than ourselves, at least, nothing that we can't beat into submission."

Get Daniel to shut up. That was a good one. Daniel gave a humorless snort. Jack would love to find a way to get him to shut up if Eva ever found a way to. "From an academic point of view, sure. But personally, no."

The antler slid into place from that dangerously sliding angle it had been heading for. She had a Leaning Tower of Pisa going on there. Daniel's eyes drifted up to follow the motion. The whole thing wasn't really doing it for her. Like it was on for show, but even then, something about her didn't want to wear any of this. Did they even do simple? Anything as simple as jeans and a T-shirt might as well be unheard of.

"I imagine the titans would easily wipe out Panem," Daniel replied dryly. Panem had a impressive level to technology, but as things went, the Asgard and the Goa'uld were still leaps and bounds ahead of them. God help the Capitol if the Goa'uld show up, Daniel though. "What's out there won't get caught by this technology. If they do find this place, you're gonna be in a world of trouble."

"There is no academic point of view about the appropriate way to deal with trauma. To believe otherwise is putting too much faith in scholarship and not enough in the human soul."

Eva appreciates learning, and science, and all the finer things she got to see but never partake in as a poor District wheat-thresher. She used to wonder what it would be like to go to the opera, to go to a museum, to read fine leather-bound books instead of just her ratty copy of the Bible and her grammar books and the official notices she hoarded away to pore over at night. She taught herself the big words by learning to recite the rules and regulations imposed on her.

But for as practical as she is, she's also, in some core way that seems fused to her very spine, a spiritualist.

She flashes a grin at Daniel that seems more like fangs than anything else. "Maybe that's not a terrible idea. I do like trouble, and it's been a long time since I got into anything substantial. Stabbing my fellow Victors is a paltry replacement."

Part of her would like to warn Daniel against continuing to blaspheme the city of decadence, but she's already done her bare minimum in warning him about the place. He's not enjoyable enough company that she'll sink all her time and energy into him; she has many Tributes she wants to keep alive, after all, not just one who doesn't even think she's funny.

"The "art" of the Games and it's place in Panem's as a core part of its social structure mostly," Daniel clarified. In a way it was another form of blood sacrifice, just put in a different package and under some new wrappings. But personally he preferred to see it as it was and call it what it was, not duck his head and make jokes about it or prefer to to look the other way. The Mayan and Aztecs, the Egyptians and a good deal of others had their bloodshed and trodding over lives in their history; structures didn't make themselves, for one.

Granted, academics also didn't live in that time period and witness it for themselves.

Daniel tried to imagine Eva going up against the Goa'uld. Seeing how she was like so far, and the fact she was a Victor, well, she might have a decent chance at causing them some trouble herself. Daniel didn't return the smile. "You'd probably give them a good run, until they caught you. They might find your blood-thirst intriguing and keep you alive."

"Blood-thirst?" The smiles vanishes from Eva's lips like a tablecloth being expertly yanked off a table: the dishes and silverware remain where they are, but there's a tension that didn't exist before, a palimpsest of action that leaves the air vibrating and unsettled. "Is it that obvious that I'm not joking?"

She pauses to take another flower, to stroke it and then break the neck that holds it up. She brings it up to her lips as if sipping a full glass of wine, or bringing a lover close to kiss. "Give me monsters or give me lambs, I don't care. But they find a suitable hell for everyone here. For me it was a cage because they knew I'd find a way to enjoy the torture."

Or possibly there's a limit on how many secrets they're willing to give her access to. "The Games aren't the core of the social structure. Fear is. And if I tell you any more than that you're liable to get it proven to you in blood."

He wasn't the only one looking for peace and quiet. Ever since R found the park, with some nice dark spots to lurk underneath the trees and a pond that he could watch the sun reflect off at a (safe-ish, non-piranha) distance, he'd tried to shake things up and come here when the Training Center wasn't an option or he was starting to feel hungry.

Nothing like watching the other Tributes training to make that hunger wish he could work out removing the muzzle.

By the time R arrived in the park, it was already evening, dark but not dark. The Capitol was on, day or night, all the time no matter where and it didn't really matter if you could see the stars. R guessed the people here didn't care about looking up. R did. With the trees here he felt a little bit safer from that big yawning sky, the emptiness black he was used to from home now colored this purple. Light pollution. Used to be extinct as the Living population dwindled. Now it was back.

R found himself chafing at it. He almost missed the stars.

He was still wandering the park, looking for a new spot to sway in and think when he spotted a man walking along one of the pathways. It took him a few minutes to realize who and then R shambled faster. Tall, glasses. Not much sneezing but he did get killed by this man. Hard to forget that face, that walk.

He had to make this right. Give those two groans. R eventually got close enough to start groaning.

"Uhgh....ugh...?" R hoped he had that down. That was two, right?

Daniel had bent, fingers out to touch one of the flowers when he heard it; an uneven, shuffling sound through the grass. He hadn't been long out of the Arena, and it was enough to make him freeze, muscles tensing. It was that Tribute he'd killed, wasn't it? He'd be able to pick this guy out of a crowd and in the dark. Once you were nearly eaten by him, and killed him, it was hard to forget a face. And that whole zombie thing. It was hard to forget that kind of face.

He found himself looking for a weapon about him before he even realized what he was doing. There wasn't much he could use, not unless he wanted to add Death by Allergies to the list. By then, the zombie stumbled out.

The first thing he noticed was that, great, someone had thought to put a muzzle on him, like he was a dog prone to biting any fingers that got close. That wasn't exactly comforting. The zombie lurched towards him, then, instead of hurrying towards him, stopped and groaned.

And oddly enough... It sounded insane, but Daniel had to ask, "Was that a question?"

By some stroke of luck, Sneezy didn't turn and bolt the other way the second he laid eyes on R. In fact, he stopped and tried to talk to him again like second chances were a real thing, R almost wishing he could laugh because Jesus what a relief!

"Muh...maybe," R was on a roll today. "Two...groans..."

Did this guy remember? R hoped he remembered because he was banking on it. Trying to make things right. Fix those terrible impressions he made in the Arena.

R shuffled to a stop a safe distance away from the human, trying to look as non-threatening as possible because their last couple of encounters hadn't been so hot. Don't get too close, let the human make the first move, look but don't touch. Staring across the few yards separating them, R could see this one was quick on his feet. Smart. The way his eyes flicked around, that...well, spark. Whatever it was really called.

Edited 2013-05-21 10:48 (UTC)

Daniel's jaw dropped a little. Those were actual words coming out; agonizingly slow, as if there was some serious effort in getting them to the surface, but words sure enough.

"You can talk?" Daniel blurted out, looking green suddenly. That implied a mess of things already, namely that he wasn't a mindless zombie like just about every piece of fiction implied. If this Tribute could communicate in some form or another, form words and thoughts, remember the two groans thing, even if it took this long to get that last groan out..

Oh God. That meant he'd been thinking and feeling each injury. His face getting kicked, being eaten alive. Daniel went on weakly, "You mean to tell me this entire time-"

Oh yeah, R could talk. He wasn't the only zombie capable of a word here or there but before Karis, he used to think he was the only one capable of full sentences. That and the only one who had the drive. M came close and the last time he saw him, they had the closest thing to a real conversation that R could remember. It made sense where Sneezy was coming from...especially after the crappy first impression R made back in the Arena, when R couldn't even count past one and thought trying to bite his foot off was an awesome idea.

Time to fix that.

R nodded. "Talk...ing. I'm....sorry about....then." No point saying what then was - this guy seemed real bright, so he got the picture. "And...scaring you...too. Needed...help....not arrrm."

He'd swear on it if he had to. As much as his hunger thought Sneezy's arm looked like an appetizer, R was determined to start this off on a better foot and right now he was glad that muzzle was in place.

A talking zombie. Daniel never counted himself much of a fan of horror films, period, but he'd always thought the standard walking dead was what it said on the tin. And the entire time, this zombi- guy had been trying to communicate. For someone who prided himself on finding ways to communicate, Daniel was pretty sure he'd just failed spectacularly in this case.

So much for looking past appearances.

"It's um, it's okay," Daniel fumbled after a moment. Maybe not entirely. Waking up the way he had back then was still the stuff of nightmares, but he was pretty sure that over the course of the Arena, Daniel had done much worse to this Tribute. The guilt twisted even further in his stomach. Not only that, he'd actually needed help. "I'm sorry about kicking you. And what happened at the lake."

This was going a lot better than he could've hoped, R slowly growing hopeful about this maybe working out after all. They were having a dialogue, communicating. It was a start.

"It's...okay...too," R said with a shrug. "Ac...cident. I should...have slowed...down."

Yeah, uh huh, "slowed down" for a zombie. Talk about ironic. But seriously, if he'd just taken the few extra seconds to groan out a "don't panic, and hear me out" instead of shuffling forward in his rush, they probably would've ended things on a better foot. Better late than never, right? Grateful for the opportunity to try to fix things, R began drafting up an explanation, the breath he didn't really need wheezing into his ruined lungs and then out.

"Back...there, I...needed...wing man. Other...Tribute," R gasped it out. "Understand?"

Daniel could think of no universe where being knocked into a lake and eaten "alive" fell into 'okay'. Even if it was an accident. And Daniel suddenly looked away, guiltily, it hadn't exactly been an accident back then. Granted, he hadn't wanted to kill him, but he hadn't tripped and knocked him in.

"Yeah, right, slow down all you need to," Daniel muttered. A zombie needing to slow down. A zombie needing a wingman. He'd, as of now, officially heard everything. "I might have helped you if things had gone down better."

Daniel started to hold out his hand, then faltered. Sure, the Tribute seemed like a decent guy, but he had that muzzle on for a reason. After a moment, he awkwardly dropped it. "I didn't get your name."

Really? R was downright relieved to hear that. Next time - if there was a next time - he'd take Daniel's advice to heart. Do it better without shooting off his other foot.

"I'm...Rrr," R wheezed out, the zombie's gray hand starting to flop up too. He stared at where Daniel's hand used to be, realizing after that fact that maybe he didn't want to shake. Considering R had a dead man's grip and a past history of biting first, he guessed that was fair enough of the human to be cautious here. "Just...R. Your...name?"

Maybe now wasn't the time to tell him he'd been calling him Sneezy the whole time. R usually wasn't prone to nicknames but the guy made that big of an impression on him, right from the first sneeze. Having a real name might help this...whatever that was between them. Conversations and communication issues, he guessed.

Belatedly, like a tortoise realizing finally that the race had started, R's hand lifted long after the fact. Daniel's was already back in his pocket, and there really wasn't any way to rescue this from getting more awkward than it already was.

It was more the part where R had tried to eat him that had Daniel hesitating than the dead part. Daniel had poked and prodded enough dead things over his line of work that it didn't faze him. It was the part where it wasn't quite dead yet and that part where he had a taste for humans that might have something to do with it.

"Just R? Really?" Daniel repeated. Did zombies name themselves? For all he knew, maybe they preferred to treat their "living" previous self as another phase, over and done with, with as little reminders as possible. Hell, did they even see humans as another species at this point? Now that he wasn't in danger of being eaten, he had to admit, he was curious to see what kind of society might develop from er, sentient zombies. "It's Daniel. Daniel Jackson."

"Really..." As far as he knew. At least it was easy to remember? Sometimes R wished he could get the rest of it out of that murky nothing, though, because it almost felt sometimes that if he just had more to his name - a key vowel, even whatever its ending was - he'd be that much closer to knowing who he was before. "All...that's...left. Rr," he repeated, as if almost challenging Daniel to say that didn't count.

"Dan...iel," R mostly got it out in one shot, looking at that last name and deciding not to get too ambitious here. Better stick with the basics. "Nice to...meet you. G...glad for...chances."

He kept wanting to shake hands, for some reason. R got the impression he'd never been that good at it, but that didn't stop him from wanting to practice anyway. Might as well since he suddenly had a lot of time and nothing like a life to get in the way these days. He tried to focus on Daniel's face, the glint of his glasses - anything to keep him from fading - and he thought the man looked like he had questions now that they weren't busy with gory misunderstandings.

Zombies, Daniel was finding, where a bizarre, competing dual natures besides the obvious living-dead thing. Waiting for R to get what he wanted to get out was about the same as watching paint dry, but at the same time, you could say he was to the point when it came to his name. Although it sounded like part of it was because that was all he remembered.

Talk about depressing.

This might be the only time he found a talkative zombie and had a second chance with one. He should take notes. Daniel instinctively began to search his pockets for a pencil, a scrap of paper, anything.

"Same here. Nice to meet you too," Daniel answered. Despite his first impressions of R, none of them good, it was becoming easier to look at him as a person and not something trying to kill him. Even if his name was partially buried, he still remembered old manners. "Would you mind if I asked you some questions? I've never met a zombie. Or what would you prefer to call yourself?"

R shrugged. Go ahead and ask. For someone who'd never met a zombie before, Daniel was a natural at almost caving one's head in. Maybe he'd been born talented. R was still working out if he should say that as a compliment (too awkward?) when the human was already jumping in his questions.

"Dead. Or...Fleshies," R thought about it. He better explain, his hand bonelessly flopping at himself and his full set of skin and muscles. "Others...Boney. Not..."

He paused, searching for the words he wanted, feeling Daniel's eyes on him the whole time. Even if he hadn't tried taking a chunk out of the guy, R would've felt nervous under that stare - there was the sharp edge of intelligence there studying him, R feeling even like more of a big, lumbering idiot of a corpse. Was he being graded? Why did it feel like he was being graded on a paper? Did he even remember what it felt like to write papers? R guessed this had to be a pretty close second, feeling so on the spot that he fumbled for a bit before he recovered.

"...Not nice...neighbors." R said. That'd have to do. It wasn't the most eloquent thing he'd ever said, but it got the job done.

Edited 2013-07-03 18:27 (UTC)

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