badliifechoiice2 | I Like To Push Until My Luck Is Over

Entry tags:

hunger games au

I Like To Push Until My Luck Is Over

With a few exceptions, alliances in the arena are destined to be constant ever changing things. It's something he knows the second the rules are explained to them. There are a few amongst their number, of course, that automatically gravitate towards those they know. Him and Signless are an example. Yet whenever they gather in those cold nights that they come to know... It's with a sense of unease and wariness.

Psii doesn't care for it. He stays with Signless, the two of them on their own. It's like being Alternia all over again as they keep close and forage for their survival. The scene isn't unfamiliar... Especially not the part where other people want to kill them.

If only it could have lasted forever.

But one night the cannon sounds off, that familiar face in the sky, and Psii finally appears at the nearest gathering of people. The light of their fire is like a beacon, after all, and he's wordless as he settles down near it with no question. Around three others, and he keeps a wary eye on them all even as a part of him is apathetic to the idea of one of them leaping forward and bashing his head into a rock.

It'd be a relief.

There's not much talking, which he appreciates, and he just enjoys the warmth for what little pleasure it can give him as he squeezes a sharpened stone in one hand. It's the sound of rustling that them all glance up again, bodies tense. New arrival, someone with murder on their mind, or beast? It could be anything.

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Schuldig abruptly stops, glancing back at Psii for a moment. {Let's find out.} Apparently he wants to test this immediately, while they've got a relatively quiet moment, rather than wait until it could be a matter of life and death. Probably not a bad idea, to be honest. {Show me.}

Fuck- he nearly trips over his own feet at how quickly they hit the brakes, glancing to Schuldig with exasperation that tries to mask the worry. Even Psii doesn't care much for his own seer abilities, something that's probably more than obvious considering he'll boast about the rest of his psionics but tells almost no one about his precognitive ones.

With Schuldig having a front row seat to his own thoughts, too, it's just as obvious. It's the mental equivalent of cranking of the radio to hide the sound of the world burning down around your ears. Psii's thought processes are often so busy half because that's just how he's wired and half so that he isn't listening in to the voices of the dead or visions of the future.

But he has a point... {Alriight. Hold on.} He needs to prepare himself as much as giving Schuldig time to as well. There's quick glance around to make sure with his own physical senses that they haven't been followed before he takes a deep breath and leans against a nearby tree. It's a precautionary method, although not always one he needs. You never know when a vision is so bad that you need to lean against something.

{Ready?}

{My reliable precog is already dead. You're second-rate at best, but you'll have to do.} Schuldig managed to blend potential jealousy, an insult, and Psii's love of the number 2 into two sentences; despite his current state, he's still overachieving as a kismesis. {You see the future as it will be, don't you? Not as it could be. Not as something you can use your foresight to change.}

He actually sounds thoughtful about this, and through their connection Psii will be able to detect why. Crawford's precognition is incredibly hazardous for Schuldig to even attempt to go near; his mind is largely locked off telepathically. Crawford sees the timeline of their future as a tree with infinite branches, and guides Schwarz - Schuldig - through the most ideal outcomes. That's too much information for Schuldig's mind to handle, on top of the things he already fields. He doesn't know how to narrow his focus to only the branches that need immediate attention, doesn't know how to keep the grip he needs on his individuality in the present while staring down the road to the future. He's only truly entered Crawford's deeper mind once, and it very nearly destroyed him.

A single path to the future, however - that's different. The nature of Psii's powers dictates how well the redhead will be able to cope with it, which is why for once Schuldig's looking before he leaps.

Edited 2015-04-08 23:02 (UTC)

{Wow, iif that'2 how you REALLY feel, how about II ju2t diitch your u2ele22 a22 back wiith the douchebag who wanted to kiill you? Then you wouldn't have to worry about how 2econd rate II am.}

It's just some obligatory bitching, however, an annoyed snort being chuffed out from Psii's nostrils even as the other part of his brain acknowledges that's exactly how vision twofold works. He'd probably flip a fucking table if that's the kind of precog he was. He gets enough of the tap just as it is with confirmed and thoroughly doomed bullshit. Listening to everything else... Ugh.

Although it's not that easy. Vision twofold is a sink with a fucked up faucet. It can still shove an overload of information, after all, something he makes more than clear to the telepath. He doesn't always get to pick and choose how far into the future he's seeing, or how much of it.

Even on one road, there's a lot to the future- a vast gaping thing. For all he knows, he might really see himself getting offed by the douchebag besides him. Wouldn't that be fun.

{Are you ready or not?}

So long as it's not a matter of infinite variations and possibilities, Schuldig is certain he can handle it. This assurance comes across even through their mental link.

{I'm ready. But don't act like my killing you wouldn't be your ideal for this situation, just short of you killing me instead.} He smirks a bit, despite everything. {You'd be lucky to see that. It'd give you something to look forward to.}

The only response to that is Psii's foot lashing out to kick at one of Schuldig's shins. Not exactly the most mature form of hate, but whatever. They're too busy to do anything else.

Taking in another deep breath, he closes his eyes and tries to settle his racing thoughts to allow that other frequency to overtake his mind. At first, it's nothing but a blaring white noise as it all rushes in- images and sounds all without order or clarity or anything. Like waking up, a dozen voices with none your own clamoring in your ears. Psii's jaw clenches as his mind works rapidly to separate it all best he can. It's tedious work, but he works through it all patiently as he can.

There- focusing in on one thing in a torrent of others. It's not Psii's own misery that he can focus on, but the doomed future for others as well, so long as they're connected on way or another to him, and here... Well, they're all connected if they like it or not.

And what he's connecting to right now is the image behind his closed eyelids, of the way a sharpened branch punctures through the gaps of a ribcage, of a tiny little package with its parachute tangled in the branches above both fighters' heads. He immediately starts trying to memorize the details of the place. Whether they avoid it or decide to go afterwards to clean up, it's a good thing to have in mind.

Things Psii might have wanted to mention: that in addition to his visions, tuning into this frequency in his pan would involve inviting in all the voices of the dead Psii tries to keep strictly partitioned off most of the time. And that their voices would be getting dumped into Schuldig's head, where he's having enough trouble dealing with the thoughts of the living. Schuldig had been expecting some disorientation; what he gets is twice the psychic weight to stand up beneath, with no warning.

The vision itself turns out to be the least of Schuldig's problems. In fact, he collapses against Psii, with a single gasped German curse, before Psii's even isolated that thread of the future for them to follow. All power in his mind - including even basic motor control - is desperately rerouted in the blink of an eye. Losing his footing in the physical world is harmless; losing his footing in his own mind is lethal, and he's staggering with the strain.

The vision, the narrowing of Psii's focus, is actually his salvation. Dealing with that sudden influx had caught him so off-guard, and required so much focus, that Schuldig hadn't even been able to maintain the presence of mind to untangle his mind from Psii's to save himself. (Of course, he's never entwined his mind on this level with someone else's when they posed an actual telepathic danger to him, either; swift withdrawal wouldn't be as simple as with someone whose mind he was simply passing through.) So when the voices of the dead go quiet, it lets Schuldig recover, a shudder of reaction and renewed awareness of his physical body going through his limbs as the vision plays out before them.

By the time it's over, he's come back to himself enough to push away from Psii with a wordless snarl. Psii will feel a retreat of Schuldig's mind as well, no less abrupt or angry. "Was that an attempt on my life, or are you really that incompetent?"

Well, that's gone to shit pretty goddamn quickly.

He'd been so lost in his own head that any physical attention had been shit he'd place firmly in the "don't give a fuck right now" box, so Schuldig suddenly pushing away snaps him out of it and is quite a surprise. Surprise turns to anger pretty fast, however, and he's bristling right back like an aggravated cat.

"You knew what you were thigning up for," he hisses, still trying to keep his voice low just in case. A little extra paranoia even in the worst of situations is for the best. "Or were you tho arrogant and dumb again that you didn't think about it!?"

"You said visions," Schuldig snaps back, a hand going to his temple. His head feels like it's about to fall off. "You didn't say anything about voices of the dead being part of that package. How many more did you think I needed, exactly? Go ahead and round up to the nearest dozen."

"It'sh the thame mental block for both! I can't help that." And he hardly ever thinks about it anymore, like how most people focus on things close to them or far instead of splitting their head open for both. For once, he wasn't doing something to purposefully kick Schuldig in the metaphorical groin.

"I don't care what you can help," Schuldig snarls. "I care that you only warned me about half of your package deal, and it was the least dangerous half." He closes his eyes tightly, sinking to one knee as the pain really starts to set in. That little misadventure cost him a lot of the fuel he'd had in reserve, and he's feeling the pain and exhaustion in equal measure.

Oh hell- "Knew we thouldn't have done it right then," he snarls under his breath even as he darts over, dipping down so that he can slip one arm underneath one of Schuldig's arms and around his back. They absolutely can't afford to be dicking around any further in the middle of the night, after he just tore out someone's knee. No.

"Do I need to carry your ath?"

"You need to feed me," Schuldig hisses, fingers spasming weakly against Psii's shoulder. Everything would be so much more manageable, will be so much more manageable, once he has more energy. That's his main issue right now; if he were well-fed, then even with the pounding headache and strain from not having the sugar and coffee he's used to, he could manage decently. But he's in a hell of a state now, and only going downhill. His metabolism isn't waiting for morning. "That or find a safe place for me to sleep."

He's actually worse off that Psii knows, because Schuldig's been trained to handle the most brutal of conditions. His being able to be semi-functional, under the circumstances, belies the fact that a normal person in similar circumstances would no longer be able to move under their own power. Left to his own devices, with no changes in circumstance, Schuldig would starve to death before the next firing of the cannons at sunset.

"Working on it!" Specifically, the second option first most of all. He's starting to become more aware by the second that he can't get anything done with Schuldig on him like this considering the other man's state. But if he leaves him alone, he's defenseless.

So a safe place to sleep. He can do that. He has wildlife experience.

It take a bit of dragging, but eventually he pauses with his eyes squinting through the darkness. Trolls are nocturnal creatures. Honestly, the rest of the arena is lucky that it's lowbloods like him and Signless who are dragged into this sort of shitshow. Any other kind of troll- a highblood especially- would take the rest of the diurnal schedule the rest of them rely on and slit their throats in their sleep. But for Psii? He just uses it to find things in the dark any other person around would miss- in this case the hollow beneath the roots of a tree. Yeah, that should work until morning...

Crouching down, he shoves Schuldig down towards it. "Alright, down you go, you grubfucking little thit."

No amount of Rosenkrüs training could ever make Schuldig's eyes as good as a troll's in the dark. His eyes are sharp enough to pick out the hole, and he's just able to catch himself on the edges of the hollow so he doesn't completely collapse into it. He's able to lower himself in with a bit more care.

His eyes close almost as soon as he stops moving. He'll be asleep within thirty seconds.

Awww, what a precious bitchy pile of shit, all knocked out.

Psii lingers for a moment before deciding on something, reaching forward to carefully carve his sign into the tree's trunk before he carefully feels out the local vegetation. It doesn't take much to grab some branches and leaves to help obscre the hole a little more. Can never be too careful, after all.

This is his kismesis, and he'll be a stiff cold fucking corpse before he lets anyone take him out.

And with that finished, he escapes back into the rest of the forest. It should be easy to find a nesting bird or a sleeping squirrel fucking somewhere around here, right? The excursion takes him more than a couple of hours, and by then the forest is actually starting to gain some light to it. His hands have been scratched up to all hell, yellow starting to overtake the gray of his skin... But at least he has something to show for it. A few lizards, a chipmunk, and- fucking lucky as hell- a pheasant that hadn't been particularly happy to be woken up.

Lucky because maybe he won't have to listen to Schuldig's complaining now.

Cautiously looking around the area just in case, he doublechecks the tree trunk to confirm that yeah, this is his. Now... How are things looking...?

Things are looking alarming.

Psii's mark to the trunk is unmolested, but the vegetation he'd used to cover the hole is crushed and scattered on the ground. There's also a lot of blood everywhere, fairly fresh - none of it can be over an hour old. Of course, a good amount of it appears to have come from the corpse lying nearby; Psii may vaguely recognize the man as being someone else who'd been at the fire. Someone Schuldig hadn't warned him about. One of his eye sockets has been heavily modified by the addition of a rather large combat knife.

The hole between the roots is empty. There's no sign of Schuldig.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck-

Practically flinging his catches into the hole and not giving a shit past that, Psii immediately goes to investigate the corpse. The knife is immediately jerked out and held in his hands, almost a comfort to trembling fingers. One part of his mind is trying to analyze the corpse, hoping to spot the blood tail, and the other half of his mind?

Desperate thoughts on repeat, trying to make them as loud as possible- {Where the fuck are you, come on, you better not have fuckiing diied, what kiind of hoofbea2t 2hiit ii2 that, iit'2 me or nothiing you tra2h fuckiing 2liime, you don't get to diie-}

For a considerably longer period than Psii is likely comfortable with - about ten seconds or so - there's no response. When it does come, it's slow and sleepy, something between amusement and aggravation in that telepathic voice. {Above you.}

Some ten feet up in the air, stretched out on a branch of the tree their root hiding spot is connected to, is Schuldig, looking down at Psii through one half-opened eye. From the looks of it, he was fucking sleeping up there. Probably retreated there when Psii's original hiding place was uncovered, like the vertically inclined asshole he is. There's some blood on his clothes, but from what little Psii can see, it looks like spatter, not wounds.

{Sorry, did you think something as mundane as someone taking me by surprise in my sleep while I'm starving could kill me?} The bastard actually sounds faintly smug.

It's an arena filled with a variety of people, most who want Schuldig dead for the pure reason that it's Schuldig and a fact that Psii is well aware of. There are environmental hazards up the asshole. Schuldig's kismesis is bipolar and just the other day lost the most important person in the world to him that was also his stabilizing force.

And he's still pulling this shit.

Really, he shouldn't be surprised when Psii reacts immediately, all burning emotions and sparks of psionics as he launches himself up into the air with a short burst of power so he can land on the branch. One hand, holding the knife still, latches onto the telepath's shirt. The other? That goes to try and punch him right in his stupid fucking face. "You athole-"

When he goes in for a kiss, it's less a kiss than apparently an attempt to tear off Schuldig's mouth with his own damn fangs.

To be fair, Schuldig hadn't deliberately set any of this up to alarm or enrage Psii. It had just been a chain of occurrences and Schuldig's natural responses to them.

He'd simply capitalized on the opportunity, because why the hell not. If he took it easy on Psii, ever, he wouldn't be pulling his weight as his kismesis.

Schuldig doesn't have the energy or indeed the freedom to dodge the punch much; his position on the branch isn't so secure he can move much to either side without falling off. The best he can do is move his head so that it's a glancing blow along his cheek, and he feels a couple claws dig shallow cuts into his cheek as they pass. Which is nothing compared to the damage Psii's fangs promptly attempt to inflict as they kiss, hot and bruising and wet as much from Schuldig's blood as saliva it feels like.

And, even as weak as he is and getting weaker, even with half a dozen cuts on his lips, Schuldig laughs. It's a soft, breathless noise against Psii's mouth, almost too exhausted to be anything at all, but Psii knows exactly how a smug laugh from Schuldig sounds - enough that he can probably pin the intent even with only about 10% of the usual follow-through.

God. One of these days he's going to date someone with some goddamn sensible priorities.

Just not today. (Probably never.) Instead, he milks all he can from the kiss, half to ruin that stupid vanity his kismesis still carries with him sometimes and half for some bizarre reassurance as the blood stays warm against his mouth. After a moment, he pulls away with red smeared across his lips and breathless. "Do that again," he growls, "and I will leave your utheless hump-happy corpthe behind to thtarve."

But for now, well. There's food waiting, food he could have been preparing if not for this bullshit (a mental complaint he makes sure Schuldig fucking gets), and he tugs Schuldig along with him even as though he shouldn't be wasting away his strength with flight. "Come on, you living embodiment of everything that'sh wrong with the world. I thould make you cook."

"You act like I planned it." Schuldig tenses briefly as Psii pulls him off the branch and into a controlled descent, but soon relaxes again. "And if you've got time to sweet-talk me, you've got time to cook yourself."

Almost as soon as he's on solid ground, Schuldig's eyes flicker closed again. His body is conserving every scrap of energy it can at this point.

"You're lucky you're thuch a utheless pile of bulgerot..." But it's nothing more than a mutter as he shoulders Schuldig's weight and leans him against the tree before he fetches his prey from before he had a panic attack.

It's a tedious goddamn process, and he's well aware that as they are, they're sort of out in the open. Vulnerable. His vision twofold can't be relied on right now- Schuldig can't handle him going into that again and he needs all the energy he can get. So he just works on skinning and plucking his catches as quickly as he can with his ears tuned for even the slightest disturbance. This means he's not exactly neat- the skins get discarded to the side in a manner he's sure would make Disciple screech if she ever saw them. Yet it's the meat that's important right now, and soon enough he has a small fire going with animal corpses roasting over them.

When he's finally certain they're cooked enough that he doesn't have to worry have any sickness (probably), he turns to his kismesis and kicks at his feet. "Hey, athole."

Schuldig's eyes flutter open again, slightly; his body doesn't even seem to want to expend the energy of jerking in reaction to the kick. But after a moment he takes a deeper breath - he smells the meat - and his eyes open more fully.

It seems to take a concerted effort for him to sit up, but he does so. Then he gives Psii an expectant look, waiting for him to hand something over. If you think he's about to coordinate taking spits off the fire, Psii...

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I Like To Push Until My Luck Is Over

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