trans_9 | Survivalist Plot: All That Scarcity Promotes is Desperate Men and Tyrants

Cedric almost leaps across the room to claim the bottles, balancing a large number as Howard does his thing.

If his eyes weren't watering, Cedric would've rolled them instead of blinking and ducking down. We do have metal. Cauldrons. But this is a horrible time to argue, and he's too busy coughing to use his mouth for any other purpose.

He climbs down the ladder, just barely catching himself from slipping once or twice. Time to make that grip even more painful and desperate. Falling would not only be fatal but hurt Howard too.

Somehow, they survive without any falling bodies making a mess. That will probably come later.

Howard pulls away from the ladder and doubles over coughing. After a moment, he straightens back up and gulps down air, motioning for Cedric to follow him to the car and holding the flare gun at the ready. At the very least, no monsters have attacked them yet, while they were vulnerable and couldn't breathe. Maybe it was just an accidental fire.

Howard rounds the corner and finds the car's tires are slashed. And that's when terror sets in. Whatever's hunting them, it's somewhat smart, smart enough to realize that they'd use the car to escape.

Unless it's Clef and Maxine getting payback for them killing the girl, but they aren't the type, are they? Still, the idea of being betrayed by other humans is less terrifying than the thought that they're food for monsters smart enough to close off technological escape routes.

For a moment Howard's knees go weak and his chest feels tight. Then his brain kicks back in. The tires are too deflated to be driven on, but they still have legs. And they'll need to get away from this fire before it spreads.

He grabs the briefcase and starts jogging down the street, upwind. No need to waste energy on sprinting if the monsters aren't hot on their tail.

He's got Cedric. He'll find Karis later. And Diana would do the same for him.

It's hell when the smoke catches up with him. Cedric almost collapses, stabilizing on his knees while his lungs try to force in some breathable air. Gathering enough of a supply to run takes too long, but he does. Somehow.

The loss of the car is a problem. He knows in his heart Clef and Maxine wouldn't do such a thing---they knew Cedric was coming back for them! So either someone else is alive or it's the monsters.

Probably the monsters.

He swears to Merlin and runs, right behind Howard. "Do you think the others---"

That thought ends with a coughing fit.

Howard glances over his shoulder. The smoke is moving down and away from them, blocking off their view of the street, but Howard thinks he sees something coming quickly through the smoke at them. Maybe it's just his watering eyes. He hopes.

He grabs Cedric by the wrist and keeps running with him, not stopping to let him catch his breath. He's not sure what Cedric was about to ask, but whatever it is doesn't merit an answer right now, at least, not to him.

Across the street and two blocks down, Howard tries a front door. When it doesn't open, rather than taking the time to pick the lock he breaks the window with a rock, kicks in the rest of the pane and climbs in. He holds a hand out to help Cedric in.

"You okay?"

Honestly, Howard, Cedric's not completely pathetic. He runs as hard as he can, diving into that window hole with a roll. He comes to a crouching stop, shaking his head.

"Terrified, but I can move. And I figure that's what you mean," he says in a strained whisper. "Not an accident, huh."

Howard breathes deep, trying to get all the precious air he can in his lungs. "Nice roll." He means it.

He's still desperate to put as many walls as possible between him and the outside, so he walks into the kitchen and sits down on the tile floor, catching his breath. There's an island there, so he rests his back against it. "We'll find another car and get the others later, if they're still alive."

He's about to say more when a particularly upsetting sound hits his ear. It's the sound of claws against the locked door outside, then a thump, then the cracking of glass shards under weight. Which must be the window they broke.

Cedric scrambles into the kitchen as quietly as he can, nodding. There's no way he's leaving them. They'll just route around the...

...monster. He stiffens, looking wildly around the kitchen for a weapon. He'll take a wooden plank if he has to, but a large knife would be better. He sweeps his arms for any sign of either, locking onto the first usable item if there is any.

"Back door!" If there is one.

Unfortunately, by the time Cedric finds a back door, the monster's in the kitchen. Sniffing at him. Less than five feet away.

On the upside, there is in fact a big butcher knife in one of the drawers.

Howard watches in terror.

Damnit. It's cornered him, he's going to die---and this time, there's no convenient escape route. He'll have to go down this time, a repeat of before.

"How about an appetizer?"

He twirls the blade and slashes with it, making his last eye contact with Howard. Over the island, he tries to gesture with his eyes. Run.

It dimly occurs to Howard that Cedric's much more deft with a blade than he is. Must be all that practice slashing and jaunting around with wands.

But Howard's not going to run. Not for altruistic reasons, but simply because he expects that the noisier target in motion is going to register as prey more quickly. Howard gets slowly to his feet and starts backing up and away, thanking Cedric for his life. And clicking a flare into place in his gun.

He takes stock of their surroundings. Cedric's with his back to the fridge. The window's small enough they could escape, but the monster will rip at least one of them to shreds before they get the chance. Howard moves slowly towards the exit of the kitchen, back to a set of stairs that leads down to what must be a basement.

He takes a good last look at Cedric. At that pretty face full of so much more, resignation and defiance and hope that his life will let Howard get away. Howard swallows. It's just the kid who taught him how to fly on a broom. How non-magic people have a really stupid name. How to throw a snowball.

How to get let down easy.

Howard takes another step back and is about to run away entirely when the monster lunges at Cedric.

The beast moves lightning quick at Cedric, trying to slam him against the wall. It's gaping mouth moves to take a chunk of Cedric's shoulder. It's as if it doesn't even notice the knife.

Cedric's mind is in a weird place. The adrenaline rush has consumed him, urging him onward. There's no room for a survival instinct when there's no chance to survive.

Despite his two lucky escapes so far...well, the rule of threes must be in effect, he thinks. Three's the second-most powerful magic number after seven, after all. Faces flash before his mind one last time: Dad, Mom, his schoolmates, Cho, Harry, Sirius, Remus...and his new friends. Clef, Maxine, Atom, Kaya, and...Howard.

The last person he'd ever expected to like. The person who's been taking care of him despite all odds, staying with him despite his rejection. He only wishes they could've made a few more happy memories. Howard desperately needs some cheering up.

He lunges low, knife aiming for a good sink in the side and sliding around, room for a nice neat fall. Is there a vital organ there? Hopefully. And if he dies face down, Howard won't have to see the worst of it.

"Bye," he grunts. It's all he can think to say.

Howard tries to say something back, but the words aren't coming and the monster's moving and he knows what happens next. He's seen death enough times. That knowledge freezes his feet to the floor and brings his arm up, holding the flare gun.

He didn't want to use it because setting the beast alight would hurt Cedric. Because it might not work. Because either way, it'll draw the monster's attention.

But at the moment, he realizes he doesn't care. The flare gun makes a sputtering sound and fires. The little firecracker-shaped flare hits the monster in the back right as Cedric stabs the creature in the side. A trail of flame shoots up the creature's shoulder. The monster squeals and smacks Cedric aside, almost as if it's incidental, and whirls around, confused by the new threat and attack.

Howard gets enough time to whimper in fear when the monster switches direction and lunges at him in a blind panic. He doesn't get enough time to turn and run. The monster crashes into him and the momentum takes them both tumbling down the stairs.

Into the kitchen comes awful noise, bodies slamming and falling against walls and carpet in the fall down the stairs, wood splintering, the monster screaming and then stopping.

It takes less than a second, and then the only sound is Howard's, gasps and wheezes for breath and moans of pain. He's been spared by sheer luck - during the fall, the monster impaled itself on its own claws. It's two feet away, bleeding out on the basement floor and still smouldering from the shoulder.

But lucky to not be dead isn't saying much. Howard's got a burn on the side of his head and on his side. One arm is bent at a strange angle. And what will concern Cedric most - Howard's not getting up.

Just as suddenly as it came, the reaper sends Cedric away with only a minor burn and some further bruises to show for it. He lands hard against the wall, knocking over what might've been someone's dishware once upon a time. The material of it feels strange against him.

What feels even worse is his memory kicking into high gear. Howard isn't here. He attacked with that flare gun, the monster went after him.

Oh hell.

"Howard! He probably shouldn't yell, but he doesn't care. He sprints down the stairs, jumping over two at a time to see the horror for himself. Please...no, he can't be too late. Howard's not supposed to die here. Cedric is.

With that in mind, he leaps over a pool of monster blood (should he collect that?) and kneels at Howard's side.

"Oh hell. Howard. Howard, are you with me?" He's no medic. What's he going to do? Think, Cedric. Think.

Cedric's alive. Look at that. He saved Cedric. How funny. How stupid.

Howard manages to nod a little, enough to let Cedric know he hears him. The good hand roves around, searching for something to grab, Cedric's hand or shirt or something. Even just these small motions are agonizing.

He can't breathe. Every breath is ragged and flimsy, noisier than it is effective. And if he starts to panic that will make it worse, so he tries to remind himself that he's got enough air to stay conscious. Enough to communicate. Barely. It feels worse than it is.

He tries to think but his mind's swimming. It must be some sort of internal damage, something from the blunt trauma of either falling into the floor or having the monster land on top of him and roll off. Lungs, probably.

"Can't breathe." He keeps trying to keep the panic at bay. If he can talk, he can breathe. If he can talk, he can reassure Cedric, except he can't get that many words out at a time. Except he's not sure if he's just injured or dying. If there's trauma to his insides then he could very well have internal bleeding. "Stay."

He knows Cedric enough by now to know that Cedric won't just leave him, probably even if it's the smart thing to do. But he has to say it anyway.

"I will. Promise. Just a second." Cedric looks critically at Howard's position. It's bad. He needs air in his lungs, he needs help badly.

He crawls, looking for where their belongings might have fallen. Do they still have the...liquid, the gun?

What can be collected from the rubble is picked up, and then Cedric's kneeling above Howard again, trying to work out how to keep him stable. "Call the others?"

With great effort, Howard rolls from his back to his side and shakes his head. No, the others might decide to leave him, payback for the little girl he advocated killing. Or even just out of practicality. Either way, he wouldn't blame them.

The flare gun got dropped along the stairs. The briefcase of blood is still in the kitchen. Cedric's knife remains lodged in the corpse of the beast.

Howard can feel himself getting dizzy. The idea of just passing out right now is so tempting, except for the knowledge that he might never wake up. He tries to think of what must be wrong with him, and what they can do about it with no water, no bandages or medicine, and just Cedric as a medic. Cedric, who hardly knows how to use a toaster because that's usually left to magic.

Cedric's willingness to stay with him is virtuous, but company never fixed organ damage.

Howard sucks in another feeble, raking breath, barely managing to force out the words "Pen. Plastic bag." He has an idea, a desperate and stupid idea that's only worth trying because the alternative is to slowly suffocate.

"Damnit." Cedric hovers close to Howard every second he's not looking around, worrying, wondering. "Stay with me. I know it's hard."

He at least knows that much about concussions, even if he's hesitant at first. When Howard names the items, he doesn't hesitate at all in searching for them, scrambling across the floor and picking up any lost items on the way. The plastic bags are everywhere, that's easy.

The pen is harder---they're those rigid things Muggles use, right? He tests on his wrist for a blot of ink, then returns. "Funny things. We used quills," he calls, a weird fact to keep Howard up. When he's close enough, he gets back to business. "What?"

Howard doesn't dare close his eyes. His vision's already getting blurry, like he's looking through fogged-up glass on a cold day, and he needs to hang on. At least Cedric talking gives him something to focus on, although soon he's past being able to make sense of what Cedric's saying.

No, no, it can't end like this. There's still a chance, and he has to get back home, he has to get back to Orc and someday find out what happened to his parents and he wishes his cats were here.

Focus. Howard twists his working arm at an odd angle to pull his shirt up, or at least, the remains of it that aren't burned. The burn can be dealt with later. Right now he needs to get breathing again.

He points to a part on his side, high up on his torso, under his arm, and makes a stabbing motion with his hand. If he's right, and he has a collapsed lung, he needs to reverse the vacuum so he can fill it again. That means letting the air out. The knife won't do, the incision would be too thin and close up with blood. Has to be a pen.

Knowing Cedric's not going to figure out why Howard wants to get stabbed through with a pen, and not having the breath to explain it, Howard reaches over and takes Cedric's hand. He can't speak anymore but he tries to communicate with his eyes: 'trust me'.

Unfortunately, it's possible he's just communicating complete terror, because that's what he feels right now.

Howard, what is this that you are trying to communicate. Cedric looks down at his pen tip and then at Howard's chest, where Cedric carefully helps him move the cloth aside.

If this situation was devoid of the grim implication, Cedric would think Howard was asking him to stab him hard with a pen. The only problems are that it's not exactly sanitary, that much force is difficult to gather, and it's, oh yes, violently stabbing his already wounded friend.

"Are you serious?" Cedric repeats the gesture with the pen in hand to confirm, stopping just short of the actual stab. There has to be some reason---Howard is definitely not the sort of person to sacrifice himself, though there's a sliver of doubt on that now. Clearly this...thing is supposed to help Howard live, but he can't make sense of it now.

Just a yes or no.

If Howard were in normal health, he'd snap at Cedric right now. He knows Cedric means well, but time is running out and he's scared. The fear's even worse than the physical pain. He doesn't want to die here. He's too young and more than that, he flat-out doesn't want to let go yet. It just may not be his decision.

He nods his head slightly and moves his hand over to make a V-shape with two fingers over his ribs, the only way he can think of to remind Cedric to look out for bone. Thankfully he's pretty skinny, so his ribs are easy to find.

He hopes he's right, although on the morbid plus side, he won't get long to regret it if he's not. He gives Cedric's hand another squeeze and screws his eyes shut.

Cedric understands that look of urgency. Howard needs him to do this in order to live, no matter how gruesome or risky. And there's no way he can ignore such a request in good conscience. Cedric just has a personal aversion to overcome, and fast.

He nods, locating the bone with his hands and positioning the pen between them. The bag is pulled close to fulfill its task, whatever it is, as soon as possible. Cedric wants to close his eyes, to turn away, to shake, but pure determination keeps him from messing up the job.

"I'm sorry." He holds Howard down with one hand, thrusting the pen in with the other. All Cedric needs to do is hold back the shaking and whimpering for a little longer as he tries to deal with the blood. He tentatively pushes the bag toward the wound, making a guess.

Unsurprisingly, being stabbed produces stabbing pain. The little breath left in Howard's chest rushes forth out of his mouth in a weak hiss of anguish.

But then, as Cedric removes the pen, there's air. Sweet, blessed air. Howard doesn't get a good breath in, since he's now swapped difficulty breathing with pain breathing, but it's an adequate amount of oxygen. It burns like he's trying to inhale a mouthful of needles. He tugs the plastic bag out of Cedric's grip and flattens it with his hand over the oozing wound.

Let air out the hole, don't let it back in. Each breath gets a little easier, doing this. Not easy, but easier. Who'd have ever thought he'd miss the ins and outs of oxygen so much. For about a minute Howard just lays there, working the plastic bag with his fingers and taking in breaths.

He's going to have to explain this to Cedric, possibly with a 'good job' tacked on. Cedric looks white as a sheet and like he's only avoiding passing out or crying by the sheer force of will. As for Howard, he's not out of the woods yet. The immediate problem is fixed, but for all he knows he's got greater internal damage, and either way he was just stabbed in the chest by a really unsanitary pen in less than stellar conditions.

"Thanks." His voice is a whispery croak, and then it gives way to feeble coughing that brings up a teaspoon of blood. "Find tape."

"Tape. Got it. Tape." Cedric has a clear goal. That helps. He shakily stands and begins his search, racing here and there and everywhere. Under a big mess, amidst some rubble, he fishes out a meager roll of tape.

He brings it down and starts tearing pieces, holding them over the bag and Howard's wound with a questioning glance. Here?

At least his hands are shaking here and not during the delicate part of the operation.

"Tape down three sides." Howard still feels like he could fall asleep right now. He might have hit his head, he can't remember. He doesn't make any effort to get up off the ground now, and can't envision doing so in the immediate future. Unless Cedric wants to carry him up the stairs, they'll have to spend the night here in the basement with the monster body.

Altogether, though, they've created and correctly worked around a decent sucking chest wound. It's still bleeding a good amount, and Howard's breathing can at best be described as labored, but he can talk again. And stay conscious. These are good things.

If he weren't so dehydrated he'd be crying right now. "That was close. Way too close."

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