Stuck Out In That Same Old Storm Again [Abs/Bill]

little bill cubs

He’s been lower.

Back when Big Bill was around, angry and drunk forever, there were days much worse. A tired, bloody hand runs fingertips along the years-old blister of a horseshoe. Much worse. Mandatory pain is far less cruel, and he tells himself that again and again as he crawls over mossy planks out of reach of the cornucopia, of reach of the four tributes left guarding their claim of treasure. In typical fashion he’s the ogre, the one the heroes conquer, just as Big Bill’d always said.

He’s been lower, losing blood from his chest, his face, his leg - he’s been lower.

It’s when he collapses, arms giving out and face landing in moss, that his chant ends.

The lichen is soft and real; he breathes, deep, slow, and doesn’t bother pushing himself back up. He’s going to die. Little Bill knows he’s going to die. He rolls onto his back and closes his eye, fog rolling over him, and he swears he can smell the fields, feel the heat of the unhindered sun on his face, and he thinks it’s coming now, because that was his heaven. This is heaven. He opens his eyes to shrouded tree tops and scowls, then winces from the gash along his cheek, and scowls harder. The sun is gone and he’s on the ground, bleeding for the last time.

Maybe, he thought earlier that day, maybe he’d last a few days. Maybe he’d get some sympathy sponsorship like Pepper said, and ride that as long as he could. Maybe. But here he is, chest ripped open in the very place he’s sewn up the day before, blood spilling into his mouth from the hole in his face. Here he is, dying. And he laughs, blood splattering out, and his head bobs to the side, into the green earth.

A hand slides into his and he thinks he’s dreaming. But around him there is warmth and he’s drawn into the heat, lifts his head up to see Absalom. Smiling, he drops back to the ground. He is dreaming.

“Who...who did this to you?” He squeezes Abs’ hand weakly, and stretches index finger to wrist to check for a - pulse. Eye opens wide and he tightens his grip like iron, excitement and pain both contorting his face. He’s here, and he shouldn’t be, because Little Bill is dying and he has to go on, but how damn badly does he want him. Want him there, crouching beside with ripped neon camouflage.

He tries to remember who was there at the end, picking apart himself and Georgina and the other - “5, 7, 3, and….,” he swallows blood, gags, and looks up to his apparent savior, “4.” He coughs into his shoulder, careful not to spray Abs, and looks back up. “Thank you. I hope you,” he swallows more blood, the wound seemingly more agitated when he speaks, “I hope you win.” I hope you watch movies of me.

He doesn’t think anyone has ever cried for him before, but perched over his dying body is Absalom, tears running down his cheeks and onto Little Bill’s bloody face. He wants to reach out, to push him away, tell him to save his tears and his time and his strength for more important things, to disregard this lost cause his hands grip so tightly, but the boy stares straight into Bill’s good eye and smiles. He smiles, as soft as he can, and something twists inside his chest. It isn’t fair, he thinks, to find out someone cares about him as he lay dying, to gain that security on his way out the proverbial door.

For a moment, he mourns Big Bill, who never had that affection given to him, who died knowing he was alone and always would be. He had been destined for the same ending all along, but Abs had other plans. Has other plans. One of the boy’s hands strokes through Bill’s tangled hair, and he’s overwhelmed with all of the feelings he’s never allowed himself, with the thought of his father laying limp and lonesome in the shed, with a heart that begs to beat more now than ever before. He lays there, straining to stay awake as much as alive, the blood pooling around him and his companion.

After eighteen years, he finally feels loved.

“I’m going to, I’m going to kill them,” Abs strains to speak, his rugged torso shaking. Little Bill closes his eye. “For you. I’ll do that for you. I can.” He hears the grief in his voice, clinging to every word like a tick, and Bill couldn’t help but regret being found. He’d trade his temporary joy to keep Absalom whole in a heartbeat, even if his heartbeats are fickle and unsteady and coming to an end. “Even if it kills me, too.”

“N-no,” he spits blood as he sits, coming face to face with the boy who’s saved him and damned himself in the same breath. His eye focuses into Abs’ opposite, sliding both hands onto the thick shoulders of someone much more cut out for this. Lips hang loosely, slightly ajar and dripping blood into the already formed pools between them. Strands of hair stick in clumps to his forehead, sweating and swatched in blood. Little Bill squeezes his shoulders. “No. It can’t kill you.” He pulls back one arm and coughs into its bend, chest screaming and head ringing, but he turns back to Absalom, spare hand finding the boy’s cheek.

“Please, live,” he croaks, “for us both.”


ooc: little bill leaves the thread, does more in maintenance