fighting fire with fire [garbage fire v mutts, day 2]

After he and Benedict locate the others (thank fuck), the first order of business is securing his busted leg. And Benedict’s.

And, apparently, the others’ as well. Coach and Belle are in the exact same boat, and Syd thinks it’s no wonder they took so long. The whole batch of them have their legs fucked up.

Maybe it’s the pain, the adrenaline wearing off, whatever, but the whole thing makes Syd burst out laughing at the state of them. Coach says something like, “You hanging in there?” and that just makes him laugh even harder. Emphasis on the hanging, honestly, because he’s been holding on to poor Benedict like a crutch, trying to stay upright.

”Ha, sorry,” he says, trying to catch his breath somewhere in the middle of all that laughter. ”It’s not funny. It’s bad. It’s just,” he waves his hand vaguely, “I don’t know, recovering from the stress or something.”

And so the group settles into a new normal: namely, fixing what’s broken best as they can, adjusting to the thrumming from the towering Cornucopia, and absorbing the realization that this is their life now. While they try to reacquaint themselves with moving and functioning with their injuries, they don’t move far from where the fighting started. Really, they’re lucky to get anywhere at all; Syd looks at the others when he thinks they’re not paying attention to him, and they’re beat up pretty bad in comparison. If he feels like hell, what do they feel like?

He does his best to help them. That’s his purpose here, after all; his life in District Twelve was over the moment his family rejected him, so now all he’s got are these other kids. And he’s gonna help one of them make it outta here alive, if he can. If he can’t, he can at least… make their end better somehow? Kinder?

But he isn’t the only one bringing a little kindness to the Arena today. For Syd, some extra love comes from unexpected sponsor parachutes floating from the sky with his name on them. There’s this weird little gadget thing. It takes an embarrassingly long time for him to recognize that it’s a phone. He squints at it, unsure of what to do with it, then sets it aside for now.

Then there’s a flurry of things he also has no fucking use for at the moment: a radio (yeah, yeah, he knows what a radio is), a leather-bound notebook and pen, a watch that doesn’t even work, some camouflage paint, a rat plushie that he calls Ripred (derogatory), and… a sack of bottlecaps?

At least they sent a bag to hold all of this junk. Syd figures he can jerry-rig something useful out of this shit, so he keeps it all. Thankfully, there’s a couple things in the pile that are more useful: flint, to make fire, and a green velvety sort-of onesie… thing. Syd’s never worn anything like it in his life, but it’s comfier than his current getup, so he strips off his uniform and crawls on in (struggling slightly to get his bad leg in), feeling… well, not good, but better.

If not for the current gladiator-style epic deathmatch, the night would feel pretty normal. It doesn’t feel like he’s dying, except for maybe his fucked-up leg. Maybe it’s the adrenaline hangover, but by the time the night dims and the anthem rolls around, he’s starting to get one of those combo nausea-headache numbers. So he lays down in the dirt -- no blanket, no pillow, no nothin’ -- and lays his head against Ripred (derogatory), thinking man, these digs kinda suck, and also that the stupid fucking rat isn’t so useless after all. Thank you, God up above, or whatever.

Judging by the fact that nobody’s face lights up the sky to make his headache worse, everyone’s still alive. Didn’t he hear a cannon at one point? He swears he heard a cannon.

Oh well, oh well, oh well. Goodnight, hellscape.

-------



His first thought upon waking is, man, I could use a drink. And not, like, a stiff drink. When Syd runs his tongue over his lips, they feel dry and cracked, and now he’s pretty sure that his ongoing nausea-headache is maybe a product of dehydration. He’s about to sit up and ask his allies if they happened to grab any water before they limped away from the Cornucopia, but then thinks, dude, if they do, it’s their water. You’re just gonna have to fucking deal.

So he bites his sandpaper tongue and hauls himself up to meet the morning.

They do have to move somewhere, even if they’re moving extra slow. There’s nothing left at the Cornucopia to gather, and it’s pretty clear there’s no water in sight. The group moves without much of a plan except keep moving and hope to find something, and oh boy, do they ever.

Syd, Belle, Coach, and Benedict stumble upon perhaps the worst possible place for people who are drying out by the minute.

A giant fucking tire fire.

And it’s like -- once they’re in it, they’re in it. Smoke billowing into the sky, a maze of tires littering the ground, and the only liquid anywhere near here is the rubber oozing and bubbling in the dirt.

Needless to say, they should have gone around.

He’s about to ask ”Think there’s anything useful here?” when he sees something move. At first, he thinks it’s just another flame licking the sky, but then… a limb. There’s definitely a leg in there.

The others don’t see it at first, so he points. ”What in the absolute goddamn fuck is that?"

And maybe he’s jinxed it, because now there’s two of them. When he sees that second creature wriggling through the dirt and melting rubber, he loses control of every last brain cell he ever had. He forgets that his leg’s broken. He forgets that he doesn’t have a weapon except for the piece of metal wrapped around his knuckles. He forgets that he’s about to punch something that’s literally on fire. Syd Scoria, bless his heart, fucking decks it.