snakes on a ripley // [Noah + TSH Day 1]

and i am done with my graceless heart
so tonight i'm gonna cut it out
and then restart
'cause i like to keep my issues strong
it's always darkest before the dawn

Snakes.

The writhing mass looms closer and closer as I fall-jump into the oblivion-deep pit, my body accelerating so fast that I don't even have time to scream. I hit the ground with a muffled oof of discomfort, frantically scrambling up and backing against the wall of the pit with sheer terror scrawled out over my face. Give me bloodthirsty tributes any day. At least they can't bite death into your veins. I can't see Emmy anywhere. Maybe the angle she jumped from landed her somewhere else in the pit, and the idea of looking for her in this sea of wriggly little bastards doesn't exactly sound like a fun time. Sighing, I wipe some of the congealing blood from my face (not mine, none of it mine, oh Ripred I've killed people) trying not to give into the hysterical tremors racking my bones as I comb the hissing horizon for any sign of my ally.

What I find instead is my District Partner's body.

"NOAH!" I don't think of the attention I could be drawing from the other tributes lurking around, already starting to hunt the weak and the isolated. All I can process is the feeling that my heart's dropped into my shoes, the two syllables exploding over my lips in an anguished wail. He was the last piece of home I had, and now he's gone. The snakes skitter out of my way as my feet thunder across the ground, vacating their perch on his too-still limbs when I skid to a halt beside him, heaving his limp form into my arms with choked, frantic sobs. "N-Noah, oh god, no, p-please don't be dead, Noah, please -"

His body remains limp, but his eyelids flutter. Beneath the flat of my palm, a steady one-two beat plays out against the seashell surface of his ribs. In a second's time, a shit-eating smirk plays across his lips.

I immediately stop crying and punch him in the junk. Hard.

"You asshole!" I shriek, throwing him unceremoniously back down on the hard-packed ground and wiping furiously at the wasted tears streaking over my cheeks. "Don't do that shit to me! I was looking around and I couldn't find you and I was worried sick, and I… I thought you…"

Maybe the heat's making me bipolar, or maybe it's the adrenaline knocking me off balance, but in another second's time I've got him pulled into a lung-crushing hug, the snake on his shoulder hissing irritably at me. I glare at it until it shuts up. There's blood all over me, staining the hideous pink of my shirt and the milk-pale expanse of my skin and matted in my hair, and none of it is mine. Trying to find his heartbeat again, I shudder. "I killed… I killed two people, but I didn't look to see who they were, and I was so afraid one of them was you. I'm really glad you're okay, ya little shit."

[yay time to roll for RE ahahah FML]
[dice=8]
[+5 damage to lower leg]

In my panicked frenzy, I didn't think about the dangers of the snakes adorning Noah's body like tinsel on a macabre Christmas tree. But I certainly think about it when one sinks its fangs into my leg. I scream in pain and fear, batting at the grisly thing until its jaws loose and it slithers away, loosing my grip on Noah in favor of clamping my hands over the wound. "Dammit, dammit, dammit!"

I fumble through my bag for the vial of antivenom, ripping the cap off the syringe, but I hesitate before driving it into my leg. It hurts, yes, but it doesn't burn in the way that venom would, simply a dull, throbbing ache where the fangs penetrated my skin. I have to conserve resources, and I'd like to wait to be sure if I'm dying before I waste my precious medicine.

"It's okay, I don't think it was poisonous," I groan, peeling my hand away to look at the twin rivulets of blood running down my leg. Perhaps the odds aren't ever in my favor, but maybe Fate isn't trying as hard to kill me as I thought.

[color=[if you interrupt this thread I will eviscerate you with a rusty spork kty <3]

shake it out, shake it out
shake it out, shake it out, woah
and it's hard to dance
with a devil on your back
so shake him off, woah

and i am done with my graceless heart
so tonight i'm gonna cut it out
and then restart
'cause i like to keep my issues strong
it's always darkest before the dawn

"Noah, don't -" But it's too late. Moron Supreme Noah Ripley has gone chasing after the snake that bit me, snatching a different one in the process. A choked, horrified little sound lodges in my throat as the thing launches out and sinks razored fangs into his arm. But Noah is dauntless (and stupid) in every sense of the word, simply prying it off and glaring at it as if it's some back-street hooligan he can intimidate.

"I am your fucking KING, okay? You don't go biting my fucking friends, you worthless piece of shit," he growls, holding the snake's beady-eyed little face right up to his own in a display of useless bravado. Still clutching at the bite on my leg, I look at the little twin holes carved into his forearm, a dreadful sort of apprehension settling in my bones. It looks different from my bite in the worst way, little splotches of purple-green emanating from the puncture wounds and the surrounding skin already beginning to swell.

"Nice job, Snake King, you just got yourself poisoned," I snap, carding a hand through my hair and trying to fight the panic rising in my veins. I have antivenom. It's right here in my hand. But the question of the moment is do I use it on Noah? Medicine is the most expensive thing to sponsor and the hardest thing to find in the Arena - I could search for the rest of the Games and never find another vial like this. If I was smart, I'd keep it for myself and run, run, run, run like I screamed for him to in the carnage of the Bloodbath, run from Noah Ripley and his stupid macho bullshit and not look back.

But I am stupid, and I can't watch him die.

"I'll just let you sit there for a minute and bask in the agony you've earned yourself, you idiot." The grumbling continues under my breath as I fish the medical kit out of my backpack, rifling through its contents until I come up with the supplies necessary to patch up my leg. Arena poison is slow, and the least Noah deserves is to be a little bit uncomfortable for a while to make him learn his lesson. I wipe at the abrasions with a little alcohol-soaked towelette, wincing, and then thread the single needle tucked into the corner of the plastic box. The gritted-teeth curses that come when I put a single stitch in each of the wounds are nearly lost among all the hissing filling the air, but it's done soon enough, all neat and tied up like I actually know what the hell I'm doing. Sighing, I grab the vial of antivenom from beside me. "And this is why we don't try to assert our dominance over dangerous animals, children. Attend the tale of Noah Ripley, the Great Buffoon of District Four, who - …Noah?"

When I look up, he's stumbling determinedly toward yet another writhing pile. "Noah, what the fuck are you doing?!"

[River uses one use of needle/thread for -5 damage]

shake it out, shake it out
shake it out, shake it out, woah
and it's hard to dance
with a devil on your back
so shake him off, woah

and i am done with my graceless heart
so tonight i'm gonna cut it out
and then restart
'cause i like to keep my issues strong
it's always darkest before the dawn

"I'm catching snakes, River. I'm the fucking Snake King." Noah is covered in snakes. In the few minutes it took me to sit down and patch up my wounds, he's wandered into a whole mess of trouble, adorned head to toe in slinking bodies that seem to hold malice in their very movements. It doesn't take a genius to notice how sluggish his movements are, how his speech is slow and slurred and tripping. The venom's kicking in, and he is effectively out of my reach. A brightly-colored little serpent slithers angrily between his grasping fingers as he tries to cow it into submission, teeth flashing in the scalding sun and making the budding hysteria press urgently against the backs of my teeth.

"You're the King of the Numpties, is what you are," I respond sharply, watching with a sort of fascinated horror as he takes yet another bite and shoves the snake into his pocket, grinning smugly like he's not slowly killing himself. "Compensating for the snake that's not in your pants, Ripley? Come on, stop being stupid."

The venom must be hallucinogenic - or maybe Noah's actually that much of an idiot. Both options are equally possible - addling his brain and twisting the world on its axis. He thinks he's invincible most of the time, but now he's taking it a bit far even for the indomitable Noah Ripley. If this keeps up, he's going to be dead on the ground before I can do a damn thing about it. Frowning, I stand carefully, slowly shouldering my backpack before starting to inch in his direction as slowly as I can.

"Noah…" It's the voice I use whenever I catch Brooke playing with something breakable, insistent but gentle enough to not startle the tremulous calm and leave the situation shattered all over the floor. "Noah, honey, listen to me. Put. The snakes. Down."

Cylindrical bodies slither over and around my feet, setting my heart racing (I can feel it rebounding in the aching place on my leg), but I clench my teeth and try to remember how to breathe. One venom-high person and one panicked person doesn't make for a very good situation. I am ten feet away. I shuffle a bit closer. Nine.

What am I even going to do - eight - when I get to him? Tackling him in an effort to save him from himself would only get us both bitten, and if his slurred rambling is anything to go by then talking sense to him won't have much of an effect. Seven. I should have run when I had the chance, should have judged him dead and run away from whatever had supposedly killed him. Now thanks to my stupid emotions I'm stuck babysitting the fucking Snake King and trying to prevent the pair of us from dying horrific deaths.

I'm completely out of my element - six. When I caught Brooke playing with a pocket knife she filched from my dresser, I took the knife away. This is a different scene entirely, simply because me reaching out and snatching a very irritated viper from Noah Ripley's hand doesn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of happening. I can't take the danger from him. He's going to have to put it down himself. Five.

I stop there, just outside the striking radius of the snakes writhing all around him, and I think. In his current state of mind, Noah is a child (not terribly different from the rest of the time, but I digress). What would I do if it were Brooke in this situation? Freak the fuck out. But after I was finished doing that…

My brows knit together, my face settling into a stern frown. Glaring, I plant one hand on my hip, pointing the other at him warningly. "Noah Algernon Ripley! You put those snakes down this instant, young man. I am counting to three. One… Two…"

shake it out, shake it out
shake it out, shake it out, woah
and it's hard to dance
with a devil on your back
so shake him off, woah

and i am done with my graceless heart
so tonight i'm gonna cut it out
and then restart
'cause i like to keep my issues strong
it's always darkest before the dawn

"We're not killing him," I hiss back at Emmy, bristling at the idea before I reign myself back in. She can't help it that this is how she sees the world - in allies and strategy and cutting her losses - just like I can't help the inherent instinct to keep Noah safe even if it's to my own detriment. We're opposites in that way, Emmy and I, and maybe before it's all over that will either make or break us. "It's not a matter of… I can help him, I'll just need to get him over here!"

"That's not even fair. I wanted a knife too. I guess I'll have to deal with this wicked cloak. Matches my name, ay?" the girl from One quips, nodding at my sponsorship gifts, but I'm too caught up in watching Noah's faltering movements, the lazy smirk that stretches languidly over his lips. The poison might have been slow before, but with that many bites… I wonder if it's possible to save him even with the tides of Fate turned in our favor.

"Emerald. Right. Good pun," Noah slurs, shoving the last of the snakes into his backpack. His eyelids droop and he sways on his feet, and in that moment I make what may prove to be a very stupid decision. I read once that animals can sense fear, so I do my best to keep a level head as I march over to him, syringe in hand. Thankfully, he's not so far gone as to refuse help, offering his arm and a mouthed thank you.

"Nincompoop," I hiss, shoving the needle into his arm in a way I hope really fucking hurts and depressing the plunger carefully. When all of the phosphorescent green liquid is successfully injected into Noah's system, I toss the empty tube out of the way, dragging him over to a snake-free patch of ground and trying to resist the urge to punch him again. "Now sit down until your head clears a bit. I think we could all use a breather."

I fold myself into a seated position on the hard-packed earth, patting the patch of ground beside me in an indication for Emmy to have a seat as well before shrugging the backpack off my shoulder and starting to sort through the contents. It's not a bad haul, as far as useful items go. Three weapons (four counting the knife I just got), matches, a tarp that could be used to throw a makeshift tent together, antivenom and a medical kit… By all means, I should be set.

Noah, on the other hand… Looking closer at him I can see that he didn't make it out with much. His backpack looked empty before he started shoving snakes inside it, and the blowgun hanging at his hip won't be any good in a close-range fight. I can only assume that Emmy fared as well or better than I did, which is great for the two of us, but a horribly guilty realization tickles my mind, whispering that to leave Noah now is as good as killing him ourselves. Reeling from the poison with no practical weapon and no real means of survival, he'll last a day at most, a few hours if the hunting packs find him. I turn my sponsorship package over contemplatively in my hands. There's an elephant in the room. I might as well be the one to address it.

"I think you should come with us," I say softly in Noah's direction before looking back at Emerald for approval I'm pretty sure I won't get. He'll slow us down, but safety in numbers is still applicable and Noah is brave, if exceedingly stupid. Not wanting to feel the weight of the reproachful glare coming my way, I look back down at the shiny metal tube in my lap. "Even if only just for long enough to make sure the antivenom's working. I've got another dose if you need it. But we can't stay here, not with all the noise we made. The others will be coming soon."

I shove all of my things back into my bag and stand up, shrugging it onto my shoulder again. There's no real explanation or reason as to why I feel so invested in Noah Ripley's well-being. He was nothing to me before the Games, and we spent the majority of training week snarking at each other. But he is the closest thing to home I have here, and so I will cling to him no matter how bent he is on his own destruction. Gnawing on my lower lip, I stay still for a long time before grabbing the knife from my sponsorship and pressing the handle into Noah's hand, reaching to smooth the rumpled mess of his hair in a way that's probably a bit too motherly and pressing my palm against his fevered cheek.

"And even if you decide you want to go it alone… Take care of yourself, Noah. Stay safe." I feel like crying, but I blink the burn out of my eyes and turn to Emerald, re-adjusting the bag across my shoulders. "Okay, let's get out of here."

[color=[River gives Noah her knife.]

shake it out, shake it out
shake it out, shake it out, woah
and it's hard to dance
with a devil on your back
so shake him off, woah