pierce this flesh / [kruwill summer ; day four]

[pogue]

G   A   M   B   L   E

Krueger Gamble has been staring at the body of Olete Bene for the past hour.

The echo of Elijah's cannon was still clinging to his skin as he'd bent down towards the murky waters of the lake in front of him, cloth torn from ragged uniform and wrapped around the wounds aching in his shoulder. He'd ended up bad but Will was worse, the palm print of a blood-soaked hand still painted on the back of his uniform as he'd carried her from the fight. But she was alive, if only barely, taking the life of his district partner and painting her skin red with a mixture of his blood and her own.

He knows he should be grateful, willing, patch her up like Olete had done for him and stay by her side, listen to her heaving lungs and make sure she is still alive when the echo of the cannon fades from memory.

But he doesn't. He's never been built to last to those that matter, has watched friends and family come and go from the shadows all throughout his life. The nature of the troupe was to never get attached to anyone, to anything... to let it come and let it go as it pleases. This is no different: he pulls himself back from the edge of connection and disappears into the shadow, burning of the spotlight still fresh on his skin. He thinks it will feel better that way, to remove himself from any semblance of caring before it bites at him.

But there's a gnawing at the edge of his gut, something that chews on his soul and spits out the last living pieces. He can't stop picturing the way Elijah's face had looked when he'd begged him not to let his death be in vain. 

It'd only worsened when Olete's body had come into view underneath the moonlight, more a shadow than a sin at first. But he'd seen the way the light had bent and pulled at the open wound in her skull, tracing the impact of Lara's dagger and calling out to him. His heart had plummeted into acid and bile, eyes wide and voice stuffed back into his throat, staring out into the lake and watching her float underneath the light.

She's haunting him even after she is so far gone. He wants to call it unfair, to yell to the skies and the heavens that her ghost has no right to cling to him like this. But something sinister rests underneath his skin, something that tells him he deserves it, something that he knows is right.

"You think I should go out and get her?"

There's voices written in-between the question, little lines of guilt threading themselves in the word. Because Olete had stepped between sorrow and steel for him, had felt her skin open and curl with the touch of a weapon, had paid the ultimate price just to make sure he kept standing. In return, he'd left her.

And now he sits, legs curled into his chest, the last of the eyes from healing wounds withering and slowly blinking as the moonlight hits them, new ones waiting to grow in the wound on his shoulder. He watches her body like he's already dead, flinching at every piece of muscle that twitches and moves underneath his skin, wanting so badly to reach out and pull her to safety. Like it would breathe life into her lungs once more, like it would make up for everything he did not do.

But he knows his answer- even before Will responds.

He won't.

[alex 🐺]

She tastes gunsmoke in her mouth. She tells herself that’s it’s Elijah’s cannon, a sentinel signaling her transformation complete but she knows that they are too far away from the Cornucopia. Maybe it’s blood that she tastes instead. It tastes acrid and wrong. She doesn’t want to grow used to it’s succor. 

Blood and iron mix with spit as she pirates bandages from Elijah’s body, her banditry speaking of her time in Twelve when they had to barter for bread. Thankfully Krueger says nothing as she tosses him the gloves with a wordless thanks.

Thanks for keeping her alive. Thanks for keeping his promise. The for now part of the conservation hangs in the ether as they take a breath as their foes and the horrible muttation flee into the forest.

Krueger carries her away from the carnage and the words of thanks die in her throat as he patches her up with the care of a detached surgeon. He flees shortly after he tosses a broken friendship bracelet her way. She’s already smeared her neck with plants and tried her hand at a shaking thread that threatens to fall into the diseased water. It’s the best she can do for now, at any rate.

“You think I should go out and get her?" his voice breaks the silence and Will knows enough of her own demons to know that he isn’t talking to her. Not really.

But she follows his eyes just the same and she spots Luna and Thomas, face up and floating in the water; their limbs sodden and bloated. Xaa follows soon after and Will rises to shaking legs, a cry on her lips that sounds like love before it cracks and dies.

“There aren’t - they aren’t real, are they?” She asks him, terror stealing her voice and carrying it with the wind. She doesn’t recognize the bodies in the water. She can’t. The alternative would break her and she’s fractured, breaking into a thousand pieces.