Tears in the Rain

[NotAFlyingToy]

Hansel stripped out of his hoodie, shrugging off the T-shirt beneath it as he watched, silent, as Mara's rage was demonstrated. He grunted, letting air out in a pathetic squeak as he flipped open the medkit, grabbing at gauze and cotton pads, disinfectant and bandages. Slowly, carefully, he pressed the cotton pads to the wound - fingers in a dam - and wrapped it all up, circling around and around his torso.

He was hard pressed to find a point on his body, now, that didn't drip blood and sing with pain, but it didn't have to be for much longer. He was almost there, almost to the end. Just needed to keep the dam from spilling over.

He tugged the white T-shirt back on, letting the hoodie lay where it fell, unsteadily climbed to his feet. He walked forwards, clutching at his freshest wound, feeling the hard bandage beneath his fingers, hearing the roar in his ears as he shuffled towards Mara.

Mara, the owner of probably the nicest moment he'd have - the last nice moment he'd experience - raging and ranting at the corpse beneath them.

He let her, for a moment, content to just watch and witness, feeling pleasantly hollow and emotionless as she shrieked and struck. For a moment, he was outside his head, his body, feeling delightfully numb and listless as he watched someone else be angry, someone else be hurting.

Then, he reached down, wrapping both arms around her, trapping her arms at her sides, and hauled back. Inhaled the scent of her hair - sweat, smoke, dust - and felt her against him for a brief moment, contact that wasn't violent, motions that weren't threats or anger.

He tried to speak, tried to say her name, but nothing - nothing but a croak - came out.

[Ruggahissy]

She couldn't stop. Mara continued to abuse the corpse who, of course, couldn't feel anything, going full-force on a speeding train that she had no idea how to get off of; she had no desire to get off of. Perhaps she might have kept going indefinitely until Katarina was scraps of bloody skin and hair.

Her throat was getting raw and her bandages were coming undone. The blood in her ears rushed like a fuzzy, blasting white noise that covered all other sound in static.

"You worthless, stupid-"

And then someone hit the brakes.

Arms wrapped around her tiny body. Feeling like a God who destroys buildings under her thumb and toting around huge guns had made her forget how small she actually was. Judging by the size of the arms, the person could snap her in half with ease.

Moving backwards suddenly was disorienting. Her first thought was that someone had yanked her backwards and her throat was about to be slit, but she opened her eyes and found herself unharmed. She was being hugged.

"What's happening?" she murmured, dazed.

She was pulled back off her knees and landed safely against someone's chest with her arms pinned to her sides.

There was the sudden awareness that she was breathing very heavily from her assault on Katarina.

Is this another dream? I've finally done it. I've gone totally crazy. That's the end.  

Mara angled her body and tilted her head up to get a look at her human straight jacket. She became aware of the sound of nature again. Birds, wind, leaves.

"You" she gasped.

This did not help to decipher if it was real or not. More than that, she was shocked by his appearance; he looked terrible. He was a gruesome mess. Her body went slack and she leaned backwards, resting her head against his shoulder.

Her left hand moved, lifted up a small corner of his shirt and felt skin against her fingers. The texture was unmistakably real. She was currently being enveloped by the deadliest killer on the island.

Her eyes went wide.

"Oh fuck," she whispered.

[NotAFlyingToy]

"Nuh guh," he tried in response, squeezing her tighter against him, the motion bringing pain - face, arm, chest - singing through him before he let go, opened his arms.

"Nuh guh-honna hurt," swallow, as the saliva pooled at his shredded cheek, wetting the bandage covering his face. He scooted backwards, putting more distance between them. Another small, nice moment in the wake of chaos. The fact that they were both here - alive, well - was something he wasn't going to spoil, or destroy.

His time was slowly growing closer to being up, and in this moment, he only wanted to extend it. For both of them.

So instead, he tried smiling at her, half covered by the bandage wrapped around his face.

[Ruggahissy]

She had the sudden sensation of her body turning to jello from fear. Her face flushed pink and her eye lashes fluttered quickly just as he pulled her in closer. She was a puzzle piece fitted into the crook of his body. His fingers squeezed and his head rested just above her shoulder. Mara looked down at the grass.

I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid of him. I'm not afraid of anything. I'm not going to die afraid.

"Nuh guh-honna hurt..." she heard near her ear.

And he let her go.

Mara scrambled to get herself turned around to face him. She stopped on hands and knees, holding onto the dirt like she was afraid if she let go she'd fall up into the sky. She gawked at him when he smiled. This was perhaps one of the only times in her life she was at a loss for words. Her eyes slid over, realizing now without the mist of insanity that he had killed Katarina.

"I....wh-....what kind of muffins do you like?" she blurted out.

She shook her head violently and she resolved to try again.

"No. I mean.....I'm sorry....your head. No...."

She frowned at him through her nerves and confusion and advanced. She crawled forward, closing the real estate he'd put between them.

"I'm not afraid of you," she growled insistently. Her look softened a bit and she sighed. "Why don't you just try to kill me like a normal person?" she said, half baffled and half exasperated.

[NotAFlyingToy]

A shrug was all he had to offer her in response, through aching jaw and cheek. Even if his mouth and face had been perfectly healthy - even if he'd been able to force words from his mouth - he'd have still come up short with an answer. How do you tell someone that they're the sole owner of a moment - a single moment - where you didn't feel attacked or damaged or destroyed? How do you convince them that, despite them causing you harm, they were someone that you could relate to? Possibly the only one left you could be understood by?

You don't, is the short answer. You just stand there.

You just shrug.

[Ruggahissy]

He just looked at her and shrugged and that smile again.

Mara was nearly angry. She might have been angry again if it hadn't all been drained out of her recently. Her head was clear again like it had been before Katarina killed Finn. She stared at him and searched, looking for anything to add to that gesture.

Same dark brown teddy bear eyes full of amber warmth. He was looking at her with care. He didn't want to hurt her.

This was in direct conflict to everything she had heard about him from the announcements and from Maddie and anyone else she'd encountered who mentioned him. No crazed blood-lust. He wasn't crazy. In her search, Mara didn't find mania in his face. What had happened? How did this all happen to someone who, it appeared, wasn't insane?

Moreover, after everything that happened how could he sit there and not be some kind of savage animal? People had attacked her just out of the assumption that she was unreasonable and would kill them. Did that happen here too? Was he just less good at evading those people than she was?

She realized she had been staring at him and thinking all of these things, trying to decode the mystery that led him there and her heart sank. It dropped past her stomach and straight to China.

Oh no

She felt panic grip her. She cared. This would either be Finn and Summer and Miranda all over again or she would be dead. She had committed the fatal mistake of caring. After a moment, she resigned herself. There was nothing she could do, no way to un-feel something.

"This makes saints into sinner and sinners into demons, right Jesus boy?" she said with a harsh laugh. It was nice not to be alone, even if it was just for a minute. Maybe it was as important to be there for others as to have them there for you. She wished she'd spent more time with her friends that were gone. They were the only thing she really missed from home, she realized.

She moved in, looking at her hands.

"We're going to hurt each other," she said quietly, matter-of-fact.

Mara brought her head up a fraction and brushed her lips against his in light osculation, no application of pressure.

"Don't go easy on me, Heehaw. If I lose I want to know it's because the winner wanted it more."

As soon as the sentence had ended she was up and sprinted to her bag. Mara tossed a white med kit behind her shoulder at him and took off into the overgrown foliage of the park.

((continued in Endgame))

[NotAFlyingToy]

Mara left with the lingering feeling of warm lips on heated bandage and harsh words ringing in the air, but all Hansel did - all he could do - was wear that smile.

He would likely be up against her, later.

They wouldn't both make it through this.

It would almost definitely be terrifying, painful, rage inducing.

But for now, he had lingering feeling on his exposed lips and the sound of her voice fading on the wind.

That was enough.

((Hansel Williams, Endgame))