[Video] Entry #2 - Event Day 3

[burntvideocassette]

[The camera's pointed at Jay's shoes. Wherever he is, it's carpeted, and it's at least somewhat well-lit. When he finally speaks, it's at a whisper and oddly flat.]

If anyone was thinking about using the last house on...Lakeview Drive for shelter...

[A gas can swings into view, and a narrow stream of gasoline leaks from the spout onto the carpet. The camera tilts for a second, revealing a well-furnished suburban bedroom with lazy gasoline loops painted across both the floor and the bed.]

...Don't.

[Jay starts down the stairs, trailing fuel behind him.]

Don't get anywhere near this place. If you're looking for me, [He tries and fails to suppress a cough. The fumes must be getting to him.] I won't be around either.

[He's in the living room now. Jay pans the camera across the room--couches, coffee table, TV, stereo--before dribbling the last of the gasoline across the floor and up to an open window. He tosses the can aside.]

Last warning.

[Jay reaches up to the inactive stereo, twisting the volume dial as low as it can go. Hand visibly trembling, he switches it on. Nothing. Good. He switches the input to "radio". His breathing is audible now, high and ragged.

He twists the volume knob, and the speakers come to life with the deafening roar of...well, you win some, you lose some.

Jay bolts from the house, leaving the front door hanging open.

There's chaos for a moment, leaves hit the camera lens, and then Jay's looking down from a reasonably sized oak tree. A corpse shambles into view, heading straight for the house. Jay cuts the feed.]

[OOC: Jay has just attempted to create walker-bait out of the last house at the end of a dead-end street. Very loud, very flammable walker-bait. He's stolen Tim's lighter, and he's planning to shut the front door and light the place up through the window once enough bodies find their way inside.

Feel free to use this post to yell at him/cheer him on/try to stop him/try to help him.]

Comments

[postictal]

Honestly? Tim isn't entirely sure that he isn't actually dead and dying at this particular moment. Hotwiring a car to drive it into a house soaked with gasoline ranks up there with among the stupidest things he's done in his life, which is saying something.

If he weren't feeling like his legs and muscles were composed of jelly, he might've shoved Jay off him to tear him a new one over bringing a fucking kid. As it is, he can only just kind of...wobble.

"Sorry," he manages, sagging. "For dragging you into this."

[burntvideocassette]

It's only now, away from those things, with Tim (scraped and bruised but breathing) on one side and the literal child who just saved their lives on the other, that it really sinks in how completely

unforgivably

fucking

stupid

this idea was. He nearly got Tim killed, because apparently Tim's willing to crash a car into a gasoline-soaked house just to buy him a chance to escape, and Jay can't think too hard about that fact without feeling the panic start to creep in, and he can't. Do that right now. If not for this complete stranger, this kid who insisted on coming even when Jay didn't really ask for help, they'd be dead. He and Tim would both be dead.

He needs something over his face. The camera hanging from the strap at his side would be too obvious, and he's not sure he has the coordination to flip the viewfinder screen open right now. His hands are streaked with gore, so that won't work either, and he's not sure when he started shaking but he can't make it stop, and he needs to.

Pull yourself together.

Tim's apologizing. Tim's apologizing like it's his fault, which is so far from the truth Jay's not sure how to respond. The words are jumbled in his head, and through gritted teeth, he manages:

"Yeah."

That's not enough. He's got his arms bent, hands curled over the back of his head like he's waiting for a bomb to drop, and that's not enough.

"I shouldn't--I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

[shorthair]

Clementine's mouth forms into a thin, angry line. The smriks' gone. She'd been willing to shove away the anger too until the apologies that come first. She folds her arms across her chest. There's the anger she'd been swallowing down like she's good at doing when survival's more important.

"It was my choice, and if I hadn't dragged myself in, you'd both be dead."

There's a reason she stuck to text. There's a reason she didn't inform Jay she's eleven years old, because she knows no one in their right mind would accept her help. This is her life. This is her world. She knows it better than anyone except for Michonne who knows it just as well as she does.

She spits the words out.

"Trying to blow up a house full of walkers by yourself and driving a car into a house full of gasoline in the middle of a horde? Really stupid choices that almost got the both of you killed and could have gotten a lot of other people killed. So think in the future. Don't be sorry. Just. Fucking. Think."

Clementine studies them once the anger's left her. Tim looks like he can barely stand on his own two feet, and the other guy's shaking.

"You both look terrible. Do you have a safe house to go to?"

[postictal]

She's still got more common sense and street smarts than the pair of them combined, which isn't saying much but just based on how she handled herself, it's fair to say she knows what the hell she's doing.

He lets her berate him - both of them - even if he can't meet her eyes in the process. If he'd just sat and waited, she would've come anyway, making his entire stupid endeavor even more pointlessly idiotic.

He opens his mouth for an automatic rebuttal and finds he's too exhausted to snap anything back. She's right. And Jay's trembling, and they're both rank with the scent of something long-dead. The skin on his knees at the base of his palms feels raw, abraded, and the rest of him aches.

"We did," he mutters. So much for that meeting up plan taking them very far at all, huh? "Kinda got separated, so."

So Jay decided to burn a house. It happens.

[burntvideocassette]

It happens. Sometimes Jay steals Tim's lighter and they get separated and Jay decides to commit arson because it seems like a good idea at the time.

Because Jay's tired of feeling useless. Well, given how all this ended up, maybe he's been feeling useless for a reason.

"Was on the other side of..." Jay gestures vaguely down the street. "Y'know."

If he's not making sense, he hopes Tim'll step in. Between the headache and the rest of it, Jay's honestly impressed he's still standing.

He catches Tim's eye, but he can't hold the eye contact for long. Instead, focused firmly on the ground, he digs in his pocket and pulls out the lighter. "Here." He holds it out in Tim's general direction. "Sorry."

The last word slurs together into one syllable, barely audible, but he hopes Tim gets the idea.

[shorthair]

Clementine shakes her head slightly in confusion. They really don't look good. She doesn't know that they'll make it to the safe house, but it's empty enough on the street that they should be good if they just get off the street.

"Is it far? You might want to hole up in one of these houses if it is. It'll be safe enough if you stay inside."

If there are no windows broken and no open doors, there's no way a walker could have gotten inside of it.

Walkers don't know how to use handles.

[postictal]

He has a lighter. Tim's lighter. It takes him a long moment for his gaze to properly settle upon in, a glint of silver in the weak light. It's...fuck. It's hard to see, harder still to focus.

But he manages to wrap fingertips around the familiar shape, gripping tight in his palm.

"We'll...we can take one of the other houses. 'S not a problem." Maybe he can get some of the stick off him, and close his eyes and hope the ache in his bones starts to fade.

After that stunt, it's not likely.

[burntvideocassette]

A shower sounds great right about now. Maybe a nap.

Jay nods his agreement, and the motion's enough to cause him to stumble, nearly sending him crashing into Tim.

Maybe not a nap. And maybe not a shower, either, if this awful smell's their only protection against those things.

"Long as it's 'safe'--" Jay injects as much sarcasm as he can manage into the last word, which at this point isn't much. "I'm fine with anywhere."

[shorthair]

They're going to collapse at any second, aren't they?

Clementine frowns and moves forward. "This way." She goes to the first house, opening the door, checking the windows and the back door. They're all intact. No walkers here. She turns back to the both of them, sliding her backpack off her shoulders, pulling out the essentials to put on the table.

If they die or something after she saved them, she's gonna be pissed.

"Bandages, antiseptic, food, water, pain meds. Should get you through."

She's hoping the Event won't last much longer, but she has to restock.

[postictal]

How the hell she manages to be more unflinchingly competent than either of them is...well, actually, that's not all that surprising. It's just kind of sobering in an exhausting kind of way.

"Thanks."

He's tired. He's fucking tired, and she's done enough into them - no need to dip into her own supplies on their account.

"You don't have to...we've gone through worse." Probably, anyway. "We'll probably just hole up and - lay low." For once.

[burntvideocassette]

('Yeah. Great, cool. I'm great at doing that, Alex.'

That was another Jay, the first one to die. Jay--whichever one he'd be considered right now--likes to think he's gotten a little better at flying under the radar since then.)

Seriously, though, she's giving them too much.

"Look, we don't need--those are yours. You don't have to..." Jay thinks of his stockpile, all the way back at the first house. "...Maybe leave some of the food and water. But not if you need it."

He and Tim have both skipped their fair share of meals before, and the event should be over soon anyway.

[shorthair]

"I know I don't have to do it. How do you think I survived in my world? Everything I did was to keep myself alive even if it meant screwing over someone else. It fucking had to be."

Clementine leaves the items despite their arguing with her over it. It's nice to be able to save someone for a change even if it meant saving two dumbasses, even if it meant being stupid herself for once, rushing into a too dangerous situation with little hope of surviving. Carver said she could make the hard choices, and she can. She has done s many times in her own world, choosing who lives and who dies, who is the better choice for survival- Honestly, there's some adrenaline from the experience that feels good for once even if her heart's still beating too fast in her chest.

"I've got a whole room stocked with even more. I'll be fine. Worry about yourselves first."

She starts towards the door and then smirks. "And don't play any more loud music."

With that, she's gone, leaving the two alone in the house.

[postictal]

Great. Yeah. They'll be sure not to turn up any more stereos.

Tim leans back against the nearest wall, sliding downward until he's in a trembling seated position. At least neither of them are at the immediate risk of fucking dying anymore, which is a nice deviation from the norm. Much as the frustration from Jay's little stunt has yet to boil off in earnest, that requires more effort than he feels capable of exerting at the moment.

The square of the lighter digs into the center of his palm. He has to remind himself to relinquish his grip on it, even slightly.

What a day.