precious metals // homemade dynamite [TH vs. AV - Day 4]

You should reach out a hand to Temple and Eve right now, say something nice, ask Bette if she needs anything because you don't think she would tell anyone if she wasn't okay about this. You should be a friend. Instead you stagger to your feet with the cannon still echoing in your ears and run before the stiffness fades from your knees or anyone has time to answer your rough "I'll be right back," because your stomach roils and your eyes burn but if you're moving you aren't gasping with the effort of vomit or tears your body has no water to produce. If you sprint fast enough, maybe you can outpace grief altogether, carry yourself back to and over the heaving water to a place where none of this matters.

You didn't spill the flowers far enough away for that.

They're not enough; they never could be. A spray of scattered rainbows around Yusei can't pull the blood and breath back into his body. Roses can't even hide the wounds—too many of the latter, too few of the former, his skin too obviously grey in between. But they're enough to say that the four of you were there, and someone cared.

---

No one has to die here today.

Wander is optimistic, not foolish; at best, seven of this group do have to die sooner or later. But not here, not today. Everyone can walk away without so much as a wound to lick. And that's cowardice, fine, meandering off into the dark with their torches to fight more muttations and while away another day—write postcards and take photographs, call into the dark for no better reason than to marvel at the bouncing echoes, while someone else out there does the dirty work—but Ripred, Wander doesn't want to watch anyone else die right now.

For a few hopeful, buoyant moments, ve even thinks the others might agree. Certainly none of vis own group are itching to fight for the sake of it, and while Wander only met Angel in passing and barely recognizes Hellion or Parson except as other people's District partners, ve trusts Annie's judgment as much as nearly anyone's. They can't be friends, but if they're with her, they can't be too bad.

Not that a cordial conversation on the train and a handful of peaceful days cohabiting in the District Four rooms quite make Wander and Annie friends, either, but ve hopes they're not not friends. She's scarily competent, but nice enough, and in much the same way that Wander never expected that surge of anguished pride over District Four—for the old songs and the maze of roads still half a mystery after fifteen years, the familiar food, all the things ve took for granted vis whole life—it's surprisingly comforting to know that one other person here knows what their home is like. Her losing that hand scared ver almost as much as Eve passing out in the cart; even after several days without her face in the sky, it was such a relief to see her walking today that Wander burst out "You're okay!" before anything else, grinning spontaneously for the first time since yesterday afternoon.

The rest of the meeting hasn't gone so well.

The worst part is that anywhere else, it might have. Bette would have seen the approaching threat more clearly; she wouldn't have had to fire into the dark, or if she did things might not have devolved from there so soon. Down in the tunnels, it only takes a couple people to turn a conversation into a cacophony; they have to raise their voices to be heard over the echoes, again and again until the volume spirals into an argument that never needed to happen while dozens of flickering shadows press in on all sides.

By force of will Wander keeps vis javelin relaxed, pointedly aimed at the ground and a little behind ver, but ve can feel vis grip on the wood tighten steadily with the stress. Eventually ve raises vis own voice too, knowing the chaos will only swallow it but at the end of vis rope and out of better ideas. "We're all fine, can we take a step back and—"

One light shifts as ve speaks, reorienting the shadows and with them the atmosphere—the sword, Wander sees, and his heart plummets even as ve forges ahead with vis plea. Then Bette answers the move with a second arrow, one that lands as harmlessly as the first but with a sharp snap that collapses the shaky balance.

"—calm down," Wander finishes, trailing off helplessly. "Oh no."

Temple doesn't scream, but Wander jumps anyway as Hellion's sword crashes her armor and the rush of motion snuffs the flames. They have too many weapons and makeshift torches for losing one light to plunge them into darkness, but new shadows swoop across Hellion, and if Wander could stomach the thought of leaving Temple and Eve and Bette ve would run then and there, back to where the way light moves makes sense and no one has to die today.

Temple lifts her axe, though, and Wander made vis choice days ago. Ve takes one step back, shifting vis weight against the javelin's as ve finally levers it forward.

"You all really are rude y’know."

Wander sputters with frustration and the spear dips again. "You—I've been trying t—" With vis free hand ve waves vaguely at the knives Parson is juggling, then around to all eight of them in a series of confused, aborted gestures. "What!"

Angel, at least, hears, answering vis first suggestion—to leave, to pretend they never saw one another—as shadows dance on the old walls under Parson's flying lights; "I wish we could do that, Wander," he says, "but our fates are cruel"—and ve believes him, but the rest is lost as the pattern of Parson's knives shifts.

For the second time Wander moves too slowly to knock a weapon from Eve's path, but where the first pass of the axe only grazed her, the knife takes a finger with it when it clatters to the floor. Wander makes a wordless noise underneath Eve's own cry of pain and raises the javelin again, aiming properly this time. Apologizing—to Eve, to Annie and her allies, to anyone—wouldn't change anything, but Wander can't help but look to Annie for a fraction of a beat, expression anguished.

"This sucks," ve mutters, the understatement of a lifetime wrenched out almost unconsciously, and pushes the javelin forward as Angel's own leaves his hand.

[Wander attacks Parson, spear]
9qv8l3_J6spear
[Stabbed in Neck -- X]

If the spearhead makes a sound hitting flesh, Wander never hears it, but the weight of resistance against vis hands screams.

Ve can't recoil quickly enough to make a difference.