Don't care if he's guilty, don't care if he's not.

[the_marshal]

WHO| Wyatt & Sigma
WHAT| Wyatt vs Sigma
WHERE| Tribute Tower
WHEN| One night after the aliens, after this and this. Before the Arena.
Notes/Warnings| Round 3 of Wyatt and Sigma's spat regarding Max so possible language, likely mentions of death and violence and injury.



Wyatt spent as much time as he could with Max, filling as many of the man's trapped hours as he could. Card games, conversation (silly plans they'd likely never live to see made real)... sometimes just company. The silent reminder, and promise, that Max wasn't alone. Wouldn't be, so long as Wyatt had a say in it.

But, for all his intentions, he couldn't always stay. The nurses came like clockwork to remind Wyatt that his visiting time was up for the day.

So, after giving his word to return, he walked back to the Tribute's Tower, stopping at the bar for a drink before heading back up to his floor.

District 10 was colder than the hospital these days.

Putting it off was no big strain.

Comments

[futilecycle]

Yesterday's events troubled Sigma deeply - he knew he had done his groups well, and yet what he had been unable to prevent lingered guiltily in his thoughts. The most toxic of these memories was undoubtedly Wyatt Earp abandoning the team with Ian in tow - his refusal to follow orders put all of their lives in danger and could have resulted in their complete annihilation. Having had plenty of time for his anger to stew, it was time for Sigma to set the matter straight.

His illness growing worse by the day, Dr. Klim's complexion had grown paler than usual and, for the first time in decades, he had rolled down his left sleeve and put on gloves to mask the contrast between his tanned cybernetic arms and deathly white face. He had words to share with Wyatt and wasn't going to allow their conversation to be put off for any reason. As he waited the Doctor had been attempting to read on a holographic tablet much like the one he had at home, but the words on the page scrambled and lost their purpose in his head, slipped away from him as he tried to grasp their meaning. Sigma coughed into his sleeve and tried to shake the dizziness away. No such luck.

It was then that Wyatt finally arrived in the suite. Abandoning the fruitless task, Sigma closed the program with a decisive beep and slammed the tablet onto the table. He leaned back onto his seat and cleared his throat, not for emphasis but to try and ease the swelling. His voice was so icy he was certain Akane would be proud. "Good evening, Mr. Earp. Do you have a moment?" Good morning would have perhaps been a more appropriate salutation, as the night was getting on.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt'd given himself two glasses, a finger of whiskey each, and a half hour's worth of what the Capitol dared to call news on the screen above the bar in-between before returning to the Suite. He'd figured, hoped, that'd be long enough to ensure everyone else would be off to sleep, but, no such luck.

Not that he could really say he was all that surprised.

Sigma'd been stewing, a hot, angry bile Wyatt had already had a taste of over the - radio contraptions.

He'd have to have been blind, deaf, and dumb to believe it was said and done.

So, with a heavy sigh, he stopped, pausing at the other end of the table. Resigned.

"Of course, Doc." His fingers hooked into his belt, weight cocked on his heels. "What's on yer mind?"

As if he didn't expect the man to take the proverbial switch to his hide.

[futilecycle]

"We are going to discuss what went wrong yesterday," he announces. Sigma is thankful he does not have to insist. The Doctor was not one who flew off the handle for no good reason, and thus his behavior yesterday had been surprisingly rare, but he did not regret how he had spoken. He starts off sharper than he would ordinarily be perhaps due to his flu.

"We came to a mutual agreement to do our best despite our personal differences," Sigma states coldly. "You betrayed that trust and did not uphold your end of the deal. You allowed personal feelings to factor into your decision, and left my team behind to fend for themselves few in rank, which could have lead to their deaths. Not only that, but you motivated a child to follow you to a location known to be dangerous! Where do you think you get off doing such things, Mr. Earp?! You are not exempt from the outline of the mission!" At this point, Sigma was shouting.

"And for whom did you disobey me? Maximus? The one man who perhaps requires assistance the least?" He does not use the word 'deserve,' but it may be implied. "How dare you. Your actions were out of line. If I had seen a vision of our deaths, the blame would have been yours, for I am positive you would not have listened."

[the_marshal]

Wyatt listened, silent, as Sigma's rage broke and spilled and washed over like a hot wave. Still, but for the thinning of his lips, pressed hard together, and the tightening of his fingers on his belt, knuckles paling.

"Seeing as it seems I am already tried an' convicted in the court of the good Doctor, I don't see that I've got to explain nothin'." Where Sigma was heat and volume, Wyatt was cold and quiet. The usually gentle drawl, clipped and tight. "But I will say this, you might have it in ya, to sit back an' listen to someone you care 'bout dyin', but I don't. Family is all I got here, an' I'll be damned--" a hand wrenched free of his belt, a finger jabbing at Sigma from the other side of the table, "--if I'll let you, er the Capitol, er anyone else take 'em away without a fight."

He took a breath, nose flaring beneath his ice-chip eyes.

"An' Ian - he chose to come. I told 'em to stay together, to stay there er to come back here, but he decided all on his own to come along. But I reckon ya were too busy forgettin' what it is to be human to hear that bit."

[futilecycle]

Sigma is ready to launch into explanation, to plead with Wyatt that if a child tries to emulate an adult for the worse the onus is on the adult to change their behavior, but the final comment is a cattle prod to his usually calm demeanor. Sigma's human eye flashes with hot red rage and all 6'2" of him stiffens in offense, the gentle giant no more.

It was not the first time he had been called inhuman, yet he did not buy into such a statement. The girl who would have been his wife was long gone, but he still feared someday she might come back from the grave the way Kyle had. Then he had lost his son, and the woman who eventually did mimic the role as his 'wife', to the Games, now. And finally both of the children he had vowed to protect were slipping away from him through acts of violence against them, and their own. Sigma felt as though he walked a razor's edge, the line between where his sanity ended and where he would at last embrace the eternal and infinite plane of death he knew too well. And now Wyatt presumed to have family in Maximus and that only the two of them were human enough to possess one?

"Do not dare to assume you understand me!" he barked. Perhaps he was taking it the wrong way. "I did not ask for my powers! I did not ask to lose my eye or my arms no more than I asked to compete in these games, in here or in my world- long before you ever have! And I certainly did not ask to know every moment in my life before it has even happened, or to know the exact dates my family would die unpreventable deaths. But I did choose to give the lot of you the same chances I had to survive - and you stand here and accuse me for it?!"

Sigma threw up his arms - for a moment it seems as if he might strike Wyatt, but it was only a gesture of exasperation and he would never have done so. "Go on, then! I will give you one chance! Justify how Maximus cut Eponine's head from her shoulders while she screamed for him to stop! Tell me that I was in the wrong for running to her defense all you want. And then tell me it was my fault I lost and we were both fed by your friend to that monster! I dare you!"

[the_marshal]

"Why the hell not, Sigma? Yer sure presumin' to know me, an' him," Wyatt spat back. He'd stiffened, preparing for the blow when Sigma had moved, prepared to defend himself, but he hadn't moved, hadn't run.

Sigma was determined to have this out, they were going to have it. The whole messy thing.

"Ya really wanna know what happened out there? An' why? Because I asked him to. I asked him to spare R. A friend of mine, a friend to someone else I consider my own. He was gonna kill him an' I asked him not to. An' Max..." A muscle moved in his jaw, twitching as his heart drummed, hot and hard in his chest. "Max, he took the burden of keepin' R safe onto himself. For me. So you wanna label someone a monster for that, ya go on an' pin that one right here."

He tapped his own chest with two fingers. "I didn't mean for any'a that to happen the way it did, an' if I could make it right, I would. But don't ya dare judge him fer that."

He leaned back, sucking a breath through his nose.

"But then, I guess it's jus' fine an' dandy for ya to run to yer family, to do whatever it takes to keep 'em safe an' happy, but damn the rest of us for doin' the same."

[futilecycle]

Don't judge him for hurting Eponine the way he had? For traumatizing her so badly she ran into his room for comfort and broke his heart? Sigma's glare cools into something twisted with disgust. R had saved his life, had shown a remarkable resistance to whatever virus was consuming him, but he had also eaten a coyote in front of him, had he not? As far as Sigma was aware, there was no reason for him to eat human flesh. "I don't endanger the lives of innocent people for mine!" Had he not been referring to the Games, this would have been a lie.

There was no point in chasing this ugly circle round and round, now. Wyatt was set in his ways and it was apparent to Sigma he would do it again. He would try a different tack.

"Well, it seems you have gotten what you wanted! Despite his injury, that man is now out of the Games. How wonderful for you!" His tone was harsh, as though the victory had gone to someone unworthy, someone who should have perished with the rest of them - and perhaps, Sigma thinks for just a moment, it would have been better for him to have died in combat. "I have no pity for him whatsoever. He is safe and you have nothing more to worry about... But Eponine is one of the few things I have left - and she might not have made it back because of you! Am I supposed to be satisfied with that?!"

[the_marshal]

"Honestly, Doc? I don't give a damn whether ya are er not. This ain't my world, an' it ain't yers. It's a violent, bloody place with nothin' but shitty choices for us all." He shook his head, mouth pursed as his shoulders rose and fell. "I've apologized as best as I can, accept it an' we'll put this behind us, er don't."

Wyatt's anger was a fast burning match, a hot, blazing flare when struck, and then gone. His heart left black and cold.

He'd said his piece, more than once now. He obviously wasn't going to make the man see reason.

"You wanna believe you've got the right to cast the stone, fine, but I know better. Some of us are still jus' men, doin' the best we can with the hand we've been dealt."

[futilecycle]

Sigma shook his head, ready to launch into another angry rant when he found himself no longer able to suppress the cold he had been ignoring all night. He bent forward had to brace himself on the wall as he coughed violently into his hands. Embarrassed, he raised his hand to show he was fine, before another fit seized him and he stayed down.

As he recovered from the bout, he shook his head wildly, and cleared his throat - he was fine! Do not dare try and use his health as an excuse to leave! His voice was cracked and strained when he spoke at last and he could no longer shout. "-As if you know anything about the world I came from. As I told you before, I am not unfamiliar with these games. And allow me to tell you something else, Mr. Earp: I won. I did not have to be violent. I did not have to hurt those around me. My life may have been on the line, but not once did I take another's as so many of the other competitors did. What I was able to do was recognize that my enemy was not my fellow competitors."

It was a dangerous statement to make, but in his cold-addled mind, he did not care. "You contributed to her death, Mr. Earp, and you cannot justify it. Men who bend to wicked rule are not men. That is my final word."

He coughed again and leaned against the wall, the night wearing down on him. "Unless you change your mind, I... I am done speaking with you." Permanently.

[the_marshal]

He would have offered help, to get the man a drink, somethin'... but they were past that now. Too much bad blood to allow them to be anything by sharply civil.

He waited for the fit to end, mouth working, tongue rolling against the inside of his cheek and his gaze turning down, disappearing beneath the brim of his hat, as he shook his head.

"I wasn't tryin' to justify anythin', Doc. I was jus' hopin' ya could see past yer own self-righteousness to see where I was comin' from." His weight shifted, head tilting back and slightly to the side. "But I was obviously wrong. You've gone an' made yer choice."

A pause. Then he pushed a breath through his nose and nodded, a sharp, neat bob of his head.

Done and dust.

"So be it."

[futilecycle]

Sigma stared at Wyatt, long and hard, through eyes bloodshot from coughing most of the day. Then he nodded and immediately turned away, still braced against the wall. As far as he was concerned, Wyatt did not exist, until he or one of his friends touched Eponine or Howard.

Sigma's cheeks burned with fever and frustration. He had not planned to meet with Wyatt only as a method to vent his rage - internally, he had hoped Wyatt would come to see things his way. It had not panned out, and Sigma felt alone, again, alienated by people who might have been his friends for trying to do what he believed was right. Exhausted, Sigma slinked towards his room, forehead burning, stifling another coughing fit.

Though disappointed, Sigma could live with ignoring Wyatt in the Arena and outside of it. But if it so happened that there came a day when Eponine did not come back, gone forever without burial when she could have had a chance to win in a past Arena had Maximus not killed her... well, he did not know if he could handle losing another child to their games. If it came to that, he worried he might lose himself, as well. He realized with fear that he had grown more attached to Eponine than he had ever intended, that he had only just had a chance to know her before she burrowed into his heart and would kill him if she left.

Sigma had covered his face before the door to his room shut behind him.