(no subject)

[shambler]

Who| R and Joan Watson, R and Shion, R and Maximus, R and Bert.
What| R searches for help for his eating problem. He also searches for help on his groaning. Throw in the awkwardness of post-Arena.
When| Before the aliens plot.
Where| About the Capitol. R has a surprisingly wide shuffling range given enough time.
Warnings| None yet.

Cuthbert

He hangs around the Training Center even after Maximus takes off for whatever it is Victors do when they’re not killing people. He probably should go back to the District Four suites. Go home. Get sprayed in the face with his Escort’s perfume. Listen to her setting up interviews for magazines where she’ll do most – try all – of the talking and he’ll sit there staring.

R drags his feet. Normally he’d be pretending he has a social life like everyone else out there. Go hang out with Howard, try to work up the nerve to ask Julie on a date. Sit there while Wyatt carves those shapes out of wood. Now he can’t. He thought it’d be easier going back to how things used to be, pre-Julie.

He’s groaning in frustration without even realizing it, standing there swaying before the archery range.

“Uggggh….!”

Yeah, he’s sulking. So?

Joan Watson

R gets nervous after the first day going cold turkey. No matter how much his Escort scolds him, he keeps his teeth clamped behind the muzzle until she gives up with a huff, crossing her arms over her chest while the plate of substitute flesh goes cold. It’s definitely not body-heart warm anymore. She leaves it on the bed. Hours tick by and R starts to think a little bite wouldn’t hurt. It’s not like he’s killing anyone this time…

He’s lucid enough to realize he needs to call in the cavalry. Maybe he’s supposed to do this all on his own but he chickens out – he wants to talk to someone, someone who he didn’t kill directly or indirectly. R catches himself before he starts automatically heading for Julie. No Julie today. The subject of eating is off the table with her. Someone else. Someone neutral who he feels like he can groan a thing or two with. R staggers away from Julie’s door with his head hanging down, trying to rack his mind for candidates and not walk into a wall while he’s thinking.

Joan Watson. The woman he chased up a boulder and she still had it in her to ask why. Question lady. Something about addicts. Counseling. R guesses he could use some counseling, whatever that is. Make it a two-pronged attack on the hunger from both Maximus and Joan.

R’s relieved when he finds her, bumping into the door frame as he groans and forgets all about creepy staring.

“You…free? Need…your…help…”

Shion

Day Two of his new diet.

R needs a distraction. Something to keep his mind off the daydreams he has. Sometimes he catches himself staring hungrily at someone – an Avox or an Escort in the elevator – and he pictures them on the floor, his teeth sunk into the meat of their arm. Other times he doesn’t even realizing he’s seeing red. That’s when he realizes he needs something to distract him.

It’s when he realizes he’s groaning again that he’s had enough. He’s tired of groaning and moaning and everything in between. If he’s going to try to fix his whole chewing up all his friends problem, he might as well try to do something about the speech thing.

R plants himself in front of Shion’s bedroom door and waits. He’s still staring at it creepily, fixed on some imaginary dirt spot, when it opens.

Maximus

Three days later and R’s really struggling to remember things like punctuality and battle plans. He can’t breathe, so he can’t “breathe-in, breathe-out and find his inner peace”. He remembers Maximus, the flash of his blade. Blood splashing red in the desert air. Maximus equals food and relief and remembering what it means to be something other than a walking set of teeth.

R staggers into the Training Center, bumping his way into a door-frame here, knocking over a weapons stand there as he sniffs nosily around. It smells of cold hard steel, the same cleanser that was in the closet. Underneath that all is human Life wafting along. Hopefully it’s Maximus. R’s already leery about his self-control with the hunger clawing away inside, telling him it’s a really good idea to stick some fingers through his muzzle and bite them off. The good news is he hasn’t figured out how to unclasp his muzzle.

Maybe the Escort’s onto his plan. She at least had the foresight to keep it on nice and tight – Eponine proofed it, even.

R waits for Maximus, looking like a miserable corpse of a boy until someone makes the mistake of getting grabbing distance close. At least he’s not drooling yet. Even hungry, R still wants to show Maximus he’s not like that dried out husk following him around the desert.

Comments

[tis_allgood]

Watching R moan and rock was not making it easier to do what needed to be done. But deep down Cuthbert still believed that he was dealing with a sweet and somewhat misunderstood man. It was the terrifying and potentially deadly outside that he was worried about at the moment.

Normally he would have approached R openly and put an arm around him but today he stays an arm's length away.

"Arre. I wish to talk, if you would be amenable to it." He may be a bit wiser on what R actually is, but he's still pronouncing his name like it's more complicated than it is.

[shambler]

Turning at the voice, R would've winced if he had enough working facial muscles for it. He remembers Bert at the Cornucopia, grabbing for him and then - and then R isn't sure. Everything had blurred from sharp photo-sharp moments to red smears. He doesn't think he'd bitten Bert or turned him. People who had that happen didn't talk to him like that. R stares at Bert for a long moment.

"What...about?" R's groan sounds apprehensive, guilty already.

The zombie wheels slowly away from the table he'd been staring at to fully face Bert. The human stands out of grabbing distance, naturally.

[tis_allgood]

It's hard to ask this, Bert still likes R and doesn't want to make an already tense situation worse. But he can't have a repeat of the last arena and that means having some information he has otherwise been missing. It doesn't help that R sounds afraid, he feels a pang of guilt that gets overwhelmed quickly be memories of being attacked.

"What are you?"

For once, Cuthbert isn't going to fancy up his words or dance around his point This is the sort of conversation that requires being painfully direct. He isn't making any other gestures toward R, other than keeping his distance. If he was allowed to carry weapons, he might have a hand on the butt of one of his guns, but since that's not an option right now he has to settle for keeping his posture stiff and his expression cold.

[shambler]

It makes sense now why Bert hadn't taken the muzzle seriously at first - like more and more of the people R ran into these days, he probably didn't know what a zombie was. By some miracle he hadn't gotten himself bitten first thing in the Arena. He catches himself wondering what kind of zombie Bert would've made. His hat trick days would been over, at the very least. Bert would've been a shadow of himself, if even that.

"Dead," R says. He points at his mouth, then his heart, then his stomach. "In...fected...like me...zombies."

He prefers "zombies" or "Dead" over corpse, though. It's all the same in the end. Still. R watches Bert over the edge of his muzzle gleaming in the light, noticing the change in his posture, the way his shoulders are squared forward instead of relaxed. The little something behind his eyes - a spark of amusement or whatever it was that made Bert friendly to a Dead boy - is walled off. R wonders how many bridges he burned by being true to nature out there.

[tis_allgood]

He's certainly taking the muzzle seriously now, he sees the need and respects it. Cuthbert had a concept of zombies or something similar. But he hasn't found any yet who could talk and weren't just mindless killers.

"You're well spoken for a dead man. Do they all stay like you in your world?"

There's still a lot he doesn't understand about this. He's not willing to give R the same easy banter he usually did, but he wasn't going to give up on things so easily. There's obviously something to R that is different. It helped that he seemed to be both docile and calm at the moment.

[shambler]

R wonders what he did to deserve a compliment like that - he did nearly kill Bert and now he's getting praised for his sometimes-questionable coherency. "Not...many. Most...can't...speak. Most...just eat."

Honesty's the best policy and seeing how he nearly killed Bert first thing in the Arena, he figures he should get the details, the warning in the details. Staring at Bert, R struggles to read his face, to find out where they stand or if it's over and done with. Will he think first of his mouth gaping open, drooling for blood and more or will he see past that and put himself in danger again?

R has no idea. Despite all the practice he's had watching emotions flickering across human faces, he has a hard time reading Bert's.

[tis_allgood]

He hadn't meant it much as a compliment, although he was still impressed that this was going so well. Somehow he expected R to try and finish what he started before Bert got away.

"Aye, eating seems to be one of those things your kind excel at."

For the most part Cuthbert is unsure. He's been kissed by an alien, brought back from the dead and killed people in a dress, and this may still be the most unsettling part of being here. R has hit him in so many deep and meaningful places and yet he's an abomination and a thing of Cuthbert's nightmares. He can't quite meet R's eyes, but he can't bring himself to walk away.

[formersurgeon]

Joan is doing research on the Capitol and its history when R shows up at her door. She looks up at him and raises her eyebrows in mild surprise.

"Hey. Yeah, absolutely. Come on it."

[shambler]

R stumbles his way inside, glancing around with that look of slow surprise that might be interest despite himself. He hasn't made it a habit to go to the other District suites aside from Howard and Julie, really, and each one looks different. R's gray eyes eventually drift over to Joan as he joins her at the table.

"Coun...ciling. Still...do...it?" R asks. With his word limit, he can't afford to beat around the bush. Besides, knowing Joan from that conversation he had, he doesn't think she cares for that sort of thing either.

D'oh, that "it" should have been an "in" - teach me to not read over my posts...

[formersurgeon]

It takes a moment for her to put those syllables together, longer than usual, but she is surprised to see him, and is also switching gears, so it's probably forgivable. Once she does, though, she shifts forward a bit in her chair.

"Not professionally," she answers. "But that doesn't mean I've stopped. The circumstances are just different." Her voice softens. "Can you tell me what's going on?"

[shambler]

R casts about for something to do with his corpse. Naturally it's easier to talk if he's not busy keeping his body upright, worrying about his posture in the back of his mind and trying not to sway too much. With a huff of dry, stale air pushing itself out of his lungs, he collapses into the seat across from Joan.

"Eating...problem. Addict?" That's probably not really covering it. Where he comes from everyone who dies becomes a maneater whether they want to or not. R hopes Joan's as good as he believes she is.

[formersurgeon]

Eating problem. She frowns. Okay, he eats people. When he's hungry, he can't stop himself from attacking every living person that crosses his path.

"It...certainly is a compulsion. And a strong one." She studies his face. His dead flesh makes expressions hard to read, so she looks closely. "You're trying to keep yourself from attacking people when you're hungry?"

[shambler]

He jerks his head in a nod. Yes! Yes, that's exactly what he meant! That's what he likes about Joan, she helps him finish his sentences but in a way that doesn't drive home he's got a major groaning issue. She does it...discreetly. Most of the time he doesn't notice when she does it.

"Want...to...change," he adds, looking at Joan with an openly hopeful expression plastered on his face as he sways forward.

[savedbyasong]

Shion was just on his way out when he opened his door to a familiar looking zombie. Familiar as in the only zombie Shion actually knew. A feeling of guilt hit him because seeing R reminded him of what Wesker had said, and he had no idea how he was going to tell R, drop that particular bombshell on him as well as everything else.

"Hello..." He blinked at him. His hair was lurid green today but hopefully R was beginning to get the hang of recognising Shion by more than hair colour. "Are you alright R?" He peered at him worriedly.

[shambler]

R stared down at Shion, trying to get over the plastic-lawn green hair he had today. Good thing he'd gotten to know the human a little better - it wasn't just trying to pick him up from sight anymore because the constantly changing hair would've made it tricky. (He liked it better than the bone white that he normally had, personally).

"Not...good," R mumbled. He tried to perk up. Stop thinking about how good you know he tastes. Focus on what he came here for. "Help me...speak?"

There, that was right there in the open. Shion wasn't the most talkative human he'd ever run into, but he could speak just fine and R hoped to leech that ability from him without, you know, eating his brain.

[savedbyasong]

Shion blinked sadly at him when R told him he wasn't doing good and he stepped closer to take his hand and squeeze it reassuringly. He smiled at the question and nodded, "Of course I will!" R had helped him speak when he had been a zombie, Shion figured he could repay the favour.

"Do you want to come in?"

[shambler]

R twitched back a bare-minimum squeeze, as if he was afraid if he did it any harder, he'd drag Shion close enough to bite muzzle or no muzzle. Jerking his head in an awkward nod, R started pushing his way into the room.

"Thank...you," R said, surprised he managed to remember politeness when the hunger kept rattling away at the bars. "How...to start?"

[savedbyasong]

Shion followed him in and thought about it for a moment. He wasn't used to improvising speech lessons for zombies on a moments notice but he could try. R didn't seem to have too many problems with basic words, it was more stringing them into a sentence. Shion tried to remember how it had felt; not that he liked remembering it, it made him want to run far away, to throw up, he could taste blood in his mouth.

Deep breaths Shion. "I think you need to remember where all the words go, and need to practice a lot... so we could try having a conversation and you have to answer with," he thought for a moment, "At least four words each time!"

[shambler]

R winced, delayed by a few seconds. His face felt like either half the time it was sagging with the flesh decaying right off or going stiff. Fun combination. Four words every time? At first that didn't sound that bad. He regularly did four words these days - all that practice with the Living seemed like it helped. But then it sank in Shion hadn't said anything about syllables and that was where he got hung up. Over a certain amount and suddenly R stumbled back into groans and staring.

"Let's...try," R said, unsure but wanting to give it a shot anyway. He flopped down on the edge of Shion's bed, slouching forward and hoping he could handle this. "You...start and I'll...go."

[gluteus]

It wasn't hard to find the boy. Though most corpses were silent as the grave, this one blundered and banged and groaned and was generally not very spacially aware.

"I hope you are good and hungry," Maximus said as he walked into the room. He had gotten his stylists to make him a very particular type of armour - it resembled something of a shark suit, all chain mail, even around his fingers, and padded underneath. He locked the door as he came in.

[shambler]

"Hungry," R moaned, putting all his weight into those two syllables.

He was here for a reason, wasn't he? R thought he was here for a reason that wasn't just get something in him, but exactly why washed in and out, written in mud. The light glinting off Maximus drew his eye, R gaping at it behind the muzzle as he worked out why it was good he was hungry. Something important. Something about...about...

R almost lost it, grabbing onto it before he started lurching at Maximus. Training. Not just eating. Had he promised? ...And did Maximus just lock the door behind him?

He'd shuffled closer to the man without realizing it, hovering just out of biting distance with the muzzle gleaming underneath the lights.

"Think...I'm...not good," R managed to get out.

[gluteus]

He would smell more like food than normal - a bag at his hip full of the special stuff they made for R.

"If you are hungry, then drop." Maximus said, hard and stern. He would drill this into R if it was the last thing he did. "Drop!"

[shambler]

Yeah, that wasn't helping. Or it was helping, R staring right at Maximus and starting to lower his shoulder down so he could start lurching. He ignored the first command. The second one made him wonder if it was important, because he was sure the Living had said that one word more than once. Dropping didn't get him food. Lunging did.

R lunged at Maximus with a growl, testing the waters.

[gluteus]

He wasn't worried about hurting R. He knew how much the boy could take, could recover from. So when he thrust his foot out positioned directly to R's chest, he didn't hold back the blow.

"Drop and you eat!" He growled at him. "Drop!"

[shambler]

Somehow R didn't even think about the kick: he took it, didn't roll, and staggered back. He almost ended up on his butt before he stumbled to a halt. On a human, a kick like that probably should've dropped him coughing to his knees. Now it bought Maximus more space. R still didn't drop.

He came at Maximus again. There was that word again. One hard syllable. It must be important. R swiped at him, growling behind his muzzle.