PIIIIIIIPE WREEEEEENCH FIIIIIIIIIGHT

[unrecovered]

Who| Wash and others
What| Murderworld. So much Murderworld.
Where| All over the arena - locations are in toplevels
When| Murderworld! Late day 1, all of day 2, and early day 3
Warnings/Notes| Violence for days. Most of these have been planned using the almighty spreadsheet - if you want to plan something, feel free to poke me on plurk!

Get pulled from a perfectly benign covert mission to be thrown into a bad Hunger Games ripoff run by someone with zero sense of style or humor. Survive, probably on his own, until help comes or he manages to escape. Sure. Okay.

What could possibly go wrong?

Comments

[unrecovered]

"Somehow, I'm not surprised." He ruffles Pidge's hair, doing his best to kick his brain into gear. They're not out of the metaphorical woods yet, and he can't afford to be in pieces. "We should find a place to hunker down for a while. We both need rest, and you still need to eat." He hasn't forgotten about that wasted MRE lying in a hall somewhere. Pidge was already running on fumes and frustration, and stress and adrenaline would have wrecked any energy reserves she had left.

(He's not thinking about himself, of course. He ate this morning. He's been through worse. He'll be fine.)

[isthisapidge]

Pidge only makes a token effort to pull away from his hand. Hair-ruffling. What a dork.

"Well, let's find one then." Fortunately, they don't have to go far. There's what looks to have been a storage room a few halls down. It was looted long before they got there, but it's big enough and it has a door they can actually lock from the inside.

Pidge's assessment is only "It looks as good as we're going to get here" before she leans against the wall and slides down. It's there that she takes the time to get a good look at Wash. "Are you OK?"

[unrecovered]

The supply closet, empty though it is, is a godsend. Wash scopes it out thoroughly before he relaxes - the door is hinged and doesn't seem to be automated at all, which means Arcade can't yank it open remotely. Good. (It also means that they're basically trapped if anyone attacks the doorway, but in an area that's nothing but neverending enclosed hallways, that's about the best they're going to get. The extra security is currently worth the risk.)

He makes sure the door is shut tightly and locked before joining Pidge on the floor, pressing his back against the cold metal of the wall. After the day he's had, it feels good. "I'm fine," is all he says as he pulls his pack into his lap and starts rummaging through it. It's not really the truth - he's not going to be fine as long as they're in whatever circle of hell Arcade has created for them - but right now, he's about as close to fine as he can get, and not unlike the room, that will have to be good enough. He pulls out another MRE - his last MRE, not that he's going to tell Pidge that - and takes the time to activate it, handing it to Pidge as it heats up. "Let's try this again."

[isthisapidge]

She takes it and waits for it to finish, but she can't help but notice...

"Do you have one?"

She hopes he hasn't just handed her his only set of rations. He needs something to replace all the energy he just lost, and she knows it's a lot.

[unrecovered]

Well, dammit.

"Not since Foxface wasted the other one." He shrugs - right now, he's honestly not too worried about it. "I ate this morning, though. It turns out shark is pretty good if you don't completely burn it." He'd definitely made some mistakes; to his credit, he'd never actually had to cook a meal over a campfire before with zero pans or utensils. The shark turned out pretty well, considering - it had been edible, and it had tasted okay. As far as Wash is concerned, that's a success. "I also have a lollipop the size of my head courtesy of Nita, but I'm not that desperate yet." Hopefully he won't ever get that desperate.

The MRE should be done heating by now, and he nods to it. "That should be ready. Eat it before it gets cold."

[isthisapidge]

"Shark...You know what, I'm not even going to ask." Yeah, why not? Why not have some shark for breakfast? That's just the sort of situation they're in. "You know, sugar gets pretty sharp when you suck on it enough. Maybe Nita really gave you another weapon."

Pidge tucks in, and grimaces. "Ugh...I guess I got too used to real food on Legion World."

But she keeps eating. She's hungry and tired and finally acutely aware of both of those things, and she only stops to yawn. This is why she usually doesn't stop: once she does, she can't get started again.

[unrecovered]

Just because she's not asking doesn't mean it's not worth an explanation. "There's a beach zone here. A shark with mechanical legs was trying to kill me, so Nita and I killed it and ate it. He shrugs, completely blasé about the whole thing. There's a Soviet Russia joke in there somewhere, but he's not invested enough to make it.

He quirks an eyebrow at the sugar comment. "You just want to see me kill someone with a lollipop, don't you." Odds are he probably can, given the right circumstances. "Though if I wanted it sharp, I'd just break it. It's faster."

That's about the right reaction to one's first MRE, and Wash hides a grin. Oh, yeah. He remembers that. "You get used to those, especially when you're having them twice a day for weeks on end." He pauses for a moment, considering what he just said. Oh. "Hopefully it doesn't come to that here." He's not planning on dying here, but he doesn't exactly want to spend the rest of his life here either.

The yawning does not go unnoticed. Wash busies himself with his pack, rearranging items and repacking them to keep his hands busy, and takes the opportunity to look Pidge over. It's hard to tell if she's injured slumped against the wall like she is, but she was moving just fine earlier, and that's about all he has to go on. Right now, it just looks like she's exhausted. "You should get some rest," he says, setting his pack aside for now. "I'll keep watch."

[isthisapidge]

"Of course you did." It's more...accepting than sarcastic. That's just the way things are around here. Sharks with robo legs. Why not.

"If you break it it'll just shatter into shards, you'll lose the distance of the stick." Later, she'll reflect on just how weird it is that she's thinking of this seriously. "You'd practically have to be in someone's lap to get any use out of it."

She wolfs the rest of it as fast as she can, deciding more time spent eating means more time spent tasting. It's awful and the calorie bomb makes her feel like a canonball is sitting in her stomach. Good time to at least attempt to sleep.

Not that she feels up for arguing with him in the first place. "OK," she says, pulling out the sleeping bag Arcade saw fit to provide her and unrolling it. "And here I thought this wouldn't come in handy."

[unrecovered]

"Pidge, if I don't have a gun on hand I fight with a knife," Wash says flatly. "'Practically in someone's lap' is about the range for that too. I'm not worried." Then again, he wouldn't be fighting with a lollipop anyway if his knife were handy, so it's a bit of a moot point.

He settles in and gets comfortable against the wall, watching Pidge destroy the MRE, and he can't help but smile just a bit. Yeah, that's definitely how most first-timers tackle them. At least she's not trying to fight him on getting rest.

"It's better than what I got." Wash shrugs. "Some smartass sent me a My first murderworld scrapbook this morning." It could always be worse, but that's still pretty damn bad.

[isthisapidge]

"Well, if you stabbed someone with a lollypop you'd be playing right into Arcade's ratings," she says, drifting off even as she zips herself into the bag.

She rolls on her back -this floor is really hard even with a sleeping bag- and folds her arms under her head.

"'First.'" She practically spits the word as she closes her eyes. "Not likely."

[unrecovered]

"Pidge, the T-1000 that was chasing us earlier is the fourth tribute I've fought in two days." He says it casually, like the fact that he's come up against four incredibly strong people out for his blood is just business as usual. (To an extent, it is, and that should worry him far more than it does.) "I'm already playing into his ratings."

He raises an eyebrow, and- oh, right. Pronoun game. "I think they mean my first. It's blank, like I should be putting stuff in it." As though that will ever happen. "If I hadn't gotten fire starters, I would've used it as kindling already."

[isthisapidge]

"Just don't make it too interesting for him," she says without opening her eyes. The fact that he's still standing right now makes it obvious that he's strong enough to take care of anything Arcade throws at him.

"Mmmm..." she says, and then pops an eye open. "Don't tell me that means you're still carrying it around?"

[unrecovered]

"Too late." It's accompanied by another shrug. Arcade is obviously out for violence, and Wash has given him that in spades, with contingency plans for any encores that may pop up. It's cynical and paranoid, yes; it's also how he's survived, both in the arena and in war.

"Yep. I'm waiting for an opportunity to use it in a big Screw You kind of way. If that doesn't work out...like I said, kindling." He looks down at her. "Now get some sleep."