(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

[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."

[savedbyasong]

Shion nodded sitting on the bed as well, crossing his legs. "Okay..." Now he had to think of a conversation starter, small talk wasn't something he was good at. It wasn't something encouraged in No. 6 and idle conversation wasn't something Rat had been good at either.

"So have you done anything fun today?" He finally asked with a smile.

[shambler]

"Fun," R repeated, already wondering if he should panic - well, the closest thing a zombie can do to panicking - or swallow at the hunger burning away in his tendons. "Ugh...I..."

Okay, not his best start. Not even close to his best foot dragged forward. Trying this again, R fixing on Shion's friendly smile.

"I...walked..a lot...today..." R finished. "How's...th-that?"

[savedbyasong]

Shion gave him an encouraging smile, alright there was lots of pauses and an um and a falter start but it was a start. There had been words. "Where did you walk to? Did you see anything nice?" He hoped more questions would give R a chance to have more to comment on.

[shambler]

"I...saw..." R was already starting to slur trying to think and talk at the same time. "Bees. And...a...sssswan. It was...big."

He hung his head, embarrassed at his kindgarten vocabulary.

[savedbyasong]

Bees... It made him think again of what Wesker had said, about how he couldn't help R until he had power, until they all had power. And at the moment they had no power, none at all. He wondered if helping R with speaking was a good thing, or if it were something Rat would have mocked him for.

"Swan." He corrected, "Try that one again."

[shambler]

Trying again. R tried not to get too nervous as he pursed his lips, reviewed how the word "swan" sounded in his head, and gave it another shot. "Sss...swan. "

[savedbyasong]

"Swan." Shion repeated, "Watch how my lips move and try and copy them." He repeated the word a couple more times, exaggerating the movements.

[shambler]

The more R stared at Shion's mouth, the harder it got. There were a few times R gave up, ending it in an annoyed moan complete with hunched shoulders. Why did he say that word again?

"Swan," R finally groaned.

[savedbyasong]

"Well done." Shion gave the biggest smile, his excitement genuine. "So what did the swan look like, apart from big?"

So far so good Shion thought, though he thought it might be a good idea if he did some research on how to help with things like word formation.

[shambler]

R tried to smile back. The muzzle actually did wonders for his smile by blocking most of it. It faltered a little once he realized he wasn't done yet and there was more. He couldn't stop at just the one word.

"Long...neck. It had...white...fuh....feathers."

[savedbyasong]

"Feathers." Shion nodded, "Good. You just have to... breathe more, in the right places." Something Shion wasn't the best at himself.

"So you take a breath at the beginning, and speak to the end. Without pausing."

[shambler]

Breathing. This would be a lot easier if he did that on a day to day basis - now he only bothered when he needed to talk, pushing stale air through his lungs and making a conscious effort. R tried now for Shion. "Fffeathers. Feathers."

He paused, and then broke off from the swan subject.

"Want...to fix...ssssentences. Speak like...you."

[savedbyasong]

Shion nodded, "You need to use all the little words, and join your words up." He told him thinking for a moment. "So." He took an exaggerated deep breath and spoke slowly and clearly.

"I want to fix my sentences, and learn to speak like you do." He nodded at R to try that.

[shambler]

That sounded simply enough, until Shion dropped a monster of a sentence in his lap and he didn't even want to know how many syllables that was. R would be sweating bullets if he could still sweat. His mouth had dropped open in a stunned gape at Shion, hanging there for several seconds before he remembered he could close it.

"Um." R said intelligently.

This was exactly what he was here for. Big sentences that weren't just grunts coming in five syllables at a time.

R trudged on ahead, silver eyes on Shion. "I...wuh-want to fix...my...sen-sentences and...learn..." Crap, crap and crap, he's stalling out. R gasps like he's a drowning man fighting to keep his head above the surface. "...learn to ssspeak...like...you...do."

[savedbyasong]

"Well done." Shion smiled, impressed. It was the most words he had ever heard from R at one time, even if it was filled with pauses.

"Remember to breathe, and focus just on speaking, wait a moment until you have it all together before speaking. Because a lot of what he was seeing was panic, and Shion knew about panic.

[shambler]

R's face twitched like he wanted to smile. Sometimes he had it in him. Right now he didn't, not with all the words feeling thick and mushy in his mouth with nowhere to go. Eating a man alive felt easier - the new hunger knew what to do and it got increasingly easier with each zombie groaning at his back anyway.

"Words...here," R pointed at his head. His finger pointed to his mouth, "But...die...here?"

In his head he could ramble on in sentences and abuse all the adverbs and adjectives he wanted. On the way out, though...that's where it fell apart. R wondered if Shion knew what it was like.

[savedbyasong]

Shion nodded, mostly understanding though most of his own issues with speech came from the words getting muddled in his mind, getting lost in all his thoughts and going on journeys through tangents until he had no idea what words he had wanted to use.

"What do you feel, when you try to speak?"

[shambler]

It was a relief to find a human who didn't look like he was pained having to wait for each tortured syllable to come out. R enjoyed that about Shion - it was one of the reasons he'd been the go-to human.

"Feel...." R paused to think about it. Tough question. "...Hold-ing...on. Not...as Dead."

[savedbyasong]

Not as dead... Shion nodded, speech was a very human, very living thing. Unless you were dead and your brain simulated by a computer and a goddess of the natural world, but Shion wasn't thinking about Safu and even if he was it would just confuse R.

"I have something for you." He said suddenly, a bit of a jump in subject but R was hopefully getting used to that with Shion. He went to his draw and brought out a pressed blue rose, sealed with resin with a leather strap, to tie around your neck.

"Here... It's... they told me we could have something to take into the arena so I thought you would like this... you don't have to wear it though." R had liked the roses though so he had wanted him to remember. Sounds like hope.

Hope was something they could do with right now. Hope was a living thing.

[shambler]

R didn't seem to mind the subject change, relieved in a way for the break. His brain still felt like mush - his mouth even worse.

"Rrgh....rose," R said. He punctuated it with a moan as he wandered over to Shion and leaned closer to get a better look. A blue one, like the one they'd been talking about. (They had talked about it? R thought they had.) His hand crept out, cold and grey and blue around the finger tips where old blood seemed to have settled. His skin brushed against Shion's as he gently pressed his fingers against the rose's smooth surface. "I...like...it."

He looked up from the rose. Humans giving him gifts still took getting used to. R's fingers curled around the rose, happy to hold it at stare at it. Getting it on his neck might be a team effort, unfortunately.

[savedbyasong]

Shion made a note to go over tone of voice and punctuating in ways that wasn't moaning (at least that was what he thought R was doing...) but perhaps not this lesson, he didn't want to cram R's head full of information at once.

"I'm glad." He smiled again, "It goes round your neck." He picked up the trails of the leather strap and reached up to R's neck. He could reach, just.

[shambler]

R had to lean forward to let Shion get easier access, wobbling down and, for a second, it seemed as if he might pitch forward into the human.

"Good...fit," R said. He reached up to touch the rose dangling from his neck, feeling the strange new weight. It was light, but if he slumped, he could see that spot of blue.

[savedbyasong]

Shion steadied him and smiled, "It is, it looks good." He reached down to squeeze R's hand again.

Could leave off here or keep going if you want?

[shambler]

R squeezed back, a little bit faster, a little bit more alive than last time. It was slightly less awful than touching a cold, rotting fish. With the rose hanging around his neck, R felt a second wind for those speech lessons coming.

"Keep...going? Want to...practice."