insertmeathere | It was a graveyard smash! (Terry and Dragon are terrible thank them)

Cedric does not like the sudden onslaught of limbs. His head hits the thin wall of the coffin, thumping painfully against the wood. It definitely lifts the fog from his mind. Several key facts are processed:

He's in a small, dark wooden box.

It's a coffin.

And his coffin-mate is attacking him in a desperate attempt to escape.

Cedric should probably help with that. He lifts his arm and leg, whacking upward as hard as he can. No, that's not the right spot. Is his wand here? That would be useful. His hand searches the space, though he yelps when the other occupant hits him.

It's clearly panic. Cedric's mind is admittedly racing too, but he knows from his experience in dungeons that they won't get out this way.

"Hey! Hey." He tries to get the other person's attention.

Cedric might have to physically restrain Howard at this point. Howard keeps slamming up against the top of the coffin, although they're pressed so tight that he can't get his knees under him so he's mostly just whamming his head and shoulder into it.

"Oh God, oh God, help, we're still alive!" He starts scratching at the walls, although deep down he knows that won't help either. And that's the worst part. It's just waiting for rescue, rather than being able to do anything, and he can't stop freaking out.

Cedric doesn't know how many more bruises he can take right now. One hit too hard and he has to lay his hands on Howard's arms. He's struggling to keep them down.

"Listen! Have you felt my wand anywhere?"

"Cedric?" Howard stops fighting for a moment, letting shock overtake panic for a moment. His arms are pinned and he hates that, but it's a small concern next to the fact that he's in a coffin. Probably buried. In the dark. "Cedric, I can't b-breathe..."

What irony, to spend his life worrying about having enough food and water and then forgetting how essential good old air is?

"I know," Cedric hisses. The precious air is starting to run out. They shouldn't move, or talk. They'll die too quickly if Cedric can't find his wand---and his whole body tenses when he knows he can't. Without it...there's no hope of lifting all the dirt.

Which of them will die first? Maybe Cedric. He's bigger, and injured to boot. That will be scary for Howard though, won't it? Hopefully they'll die around the same time.

He loosens his grip, instead wrapping an arm around Howard and letting out a low moan of distress. It's all he can think to do. Try to keep them comfortable in this awful process.

Cedric's other response is the onset of tears---possibly detectable, depending on how close they are. Why couldn't they just die right away?

This is hell.

Maybe they won't even die at all. Maybe this is it, this is eternity. Stuck here forever. Howard could ask for worse company, but that's about the only good thing he can think of.

They can't be out of air yet. Even with his panicking, there should be an hour or so, he thinks, although he can't do the math in his head. It's just the panic. Just fear.

In an hour it won't be, but right now it is.

Howard can't think of what to do, so he fumbles around through the dark until he finds Cedric's shirt and clutches at Cedric, sobbing into his shoulder.

And yet...something is digging into his ankle. Something pointy and made of smooth wood. Once he's cried it out a little he may be able to reach it.

This would be one poor eternity. Cedric's glad he's not alone, that he's with a friend, but...come on, where are the wings? He wants wings.

Cedric now has both arms around Howard, rubbing his back. It's all he can think to do while he tries to quiet his own tears. What they both fear is almost a certainty, though there's still time to get an idea.

Supposedly it's possible for wizards to cast wandless magic when the situation truly is desperate. Cedric concentrates, trying to feel out the limits of his power. It's a risk, and he'll likely only have one shot, but they don't really have options.

Cedric's leg shifts, tentatively poking for a weakness in the structure. It brushes something else---not his body or Howard's, but a small object. He pauses, then twitches his leg again.

He shouldn't let himself hope too much. It might not be what he hopes for, and...it's still out of his reach. His torso's stuffed too far up. He nudges Howard.

Howard gulps down a few mouthfuls of air. He knows he's wasting it, but he can't help it. Does it really matter, if they're going to die soon? What a few minutes longer, except for a few seconds of being miraculously, wonderfully alive?

Should he even bother to hope that that's Cedric's wand by his feet? Wouldn't it be ironic, to have it so close and be unable to reach it? He reaches an arm down, feels his fingertips brush against it, strains a little further. It's difficult, a painful position, but it's their last chance.

"I think..."

He can't dare hope he can't dare hope.

His fingers close around it. He straightens up sideways and brings it to Cedric's hand.

"Please please please let that be it..."

Cedric's heart races, anticipation and fear building up until he can't stand it anymore. What if it's just a stick? What if it's the wand, but it can't be reached? And what if he does find the wand, but he's not clever enough to get them out of here?

He whispers a desperate prayer, the words dying when the object touches his hand. The warmth that surges up his arm at the contact is unmistakable.

With a tentative hopeful smile that no one can see, he sets about the first order of business: more air. He knows what to do when one is underground and oxygen is scarce. He forces his arm between their chests, whispering apologies for the discomfort, and conjures two very familiar bubbles.

Howard should now have a full oxygen mask in the form of a bubble, one that won't pop or run out of air to convert. With that done, he feels freer to speak.

"There. Now help me think---apparition's out, so there has to be another way."

Howard can't see what Cedric's done, but he can feel it. The temperature of the air inside the bubble is a good ten degrees cooler than the coffin (which has been exacerbated by their body heat). Howard sucks in air hungrily, greedily.

"Apparation's teleporting, right?" Oh, how Howard wishes he could teleport. The ability to just walk away from awful situations like this is so tempting, and so impossible.

He's never felt this helpless, except for the moment when he was dying. He realizes he's relying entirely on Cedric now.

"Please just get me out of here."

"Right. Not enough space to do that." Cedric rattles his brain for ideas. There's probably no one around to help them, so sending up sparks should be a last resort. If at all possible, he should get them out of the grave himself.

The clear air helps him think. Logically, they have to do several things: break the coffin, break through the dirt, and reach the surface. It'd be nice if a single spell did all of that, but he might have to combine some in quick succession.

"If I break the coffin now, the dirt will crush us. We're not in the right direction for an ascension spell. And that means..."

An idea comes. He whispers a spell, breaking the coffin below them and pushing them---downward. Pointing the wand carefully to guide the magic. Cedric forces the dirt to tilt their bodies properly, leaving them standing upright underground with the coffin's still-intact top protecting them.

He takes a deep breath. He does have a plan, but it's risky. "Hold onto me as tightly as you can. We've only got one shot at this."

Howard can't tell what's going on, but he starts to breathe fast again as his surroundings tilt and shift. It feels like when he lies half-awake in bed, trying to get to sleep, and his sense of balance has already been submerged but his minds awake, so the bed feels like it's flying.

Except he's not in his bed, he's in a coffin, and he can't for a second forget that. He clings on to Cedric and buries his face in Cedric's shoulder again, removing any space between them. "Okay."

Cedric lifts his shaking arm, tapping the tip of his wand against the top wall of the coffin. It's still intact, but not for long. "I think this is going to hurt."

He clutches Howard close, curling around to protect him as best he can. Those splinters and scrapes won't be pretty. But dying here is a far less attractive option.

With a silent prayer, he sucks in a breath. All his magical power runs down his arm, working its way into the most forceful spell Cedric has cast in a long time. They'll need all that force to break the surface.

"Ascendare!"

A sudden surge of power erupts from the tip of the wand, pulling it upward and forcing it past the coffin's wall. Cedric and Howard are dragged up with it, with Cedric clinging to the wand for dear life. He nearly lets go when his hand is forced past the hole in the coffin roof, and he swears, but---they make it. The other scrapes are nowhere near as bad.

Finally, they force their way through the mound of soil, flying through the air. They crash a short distance from their grave.

Cedric rolls onto his back, staring dazedly at the night sky. It's real. The air is cool. They're alive. He can hardly believe it.

"...Howard?" He nudges his friend, worried.

For a moment, Howard just lays there next to Cedric, shaking and stunned. Vaguely, he realizes he's grateful it's night, because even the dim light of the moon and stars stings his eyes. It takes almost a minute for him to realize that Cedric's pushing at him and trying to get an answer, and that he really should respond to that, instead of just staying still.

"I'm okay." He squeezes his eyes back shut for a moment, then feels the grass under his hands and lifts his head. How did they get down there? Who buried them, and why were they together? He glances over at the hole, the splinters of wood and the black mouth of earth that still seems so hungry for them.

All that fear belatedly hits his stomach and he turns his head away from Cedric and vomits onto the grass.

Cedric sees the vomit and winces. Yes, that's a reasonable reaction. He's glad Howard's there, and alive, but look at what almost happened to them. Without the wand, he'd still be dying.

It's a sickening thought, though the only visible sign of Cedric's fear is shaking.

He crawls closer to Howard's side and flicks his wand again, clearing the vomit. Letting it linger will simply make them both sick again.

"Breathe. It didn't happen. We're getting out of here." Cedric kneels beside his friend, whispering the words of comfort. While he's at it, he looks Howard over for injuries. They shouldn't be too bad, right?

Howard takes deep breaths and nods. He's shaking badly. He can tell from a glance that Cedric is too, but Cedric at least seems to have it together right now. Enough to clean up and check for injuries. Right. Injuries.

He's okay, mostly. A few nasty scrapes. Splinters that will have to be taken out with tweezers or more when they have light again.

He sits up, spits, wipes his mouth with his wrist, and takes a deep breath.

"We're alive." His voice is quiet and far away, for a moment, as if he can't really believe it - because he can't. There's no way. None of this makes any sense. He grabs Cedric's hand. "We're alive."

Cedric picks up a piece of the coffin, lighting it with a little blue flame. That should give them something to see by---and he does see. His own arm is lined with gashes from where he'd broken through, and he can feel more. But the important thing is that they're out of that coffin.

He stays close to Howard, squeezing his hand. "I don't know how. I blew up."

"I died. I was dead and...it was awful and...now I'm not." He takes another deep breath and focuses on feeling it, feeling all the air rushing into lungs that work and over a tongue that can taste and lips that are cold in the night air. "You were still alive. You were holding my hand."

"That's right," Cedric replies, almost inaudible.

Everything starts to sink in then. The panic of the situation had held him together, urging him to just get out of the box, and now...as Howard says it, Cedric remembers it. They're not supposed to be alive.

Howard died. Cedric failed to protect him. He'd held the cold hand, and it had been one of the most sickening feelings of his life. All the more miraculous that he's holding a warm one now.

"Not for long." Cedric sounds like a broken man, on the edge of tears. "The rescuers arrived just after. Only a little too late. But we were surrounded by those monsters, a whole army of them. It was hopless---I tried, but they surrounded me. They were going to eat me."

He shudders, remembering those last seconds of fear. "I exploded before they could."

Maybe if Howard were a more demonstrative person, he'd throw his arms back and crow to the whole world the glory of the fact that he still has blood pumping, a heart beating. But he's not that kind of person. He's never been huge on declarations of self.

So instead he just keeps breathing.

"...I would have too." He gives Cedric's hand a squeeze. "I'm glad they didn't eat you."

Cedric will feel that gratitude, soon. It's still mingling with guilt.

He looks carefully at Howard, bringing the little light closer. "You're not sick anymore, then?"

A lot hangs on this answer. If Howard's still going to die soon...oh, Cedric can't bear to lose him again. He's hovering on the verge of tears as it is.

For a moment Howard doesn't know what Cedric's talking about, then he shakes his head. "No, no, not like that. I can tell, I'm not..."

He runs a hand over his shoulder, the one that was badly burned. His side, where he'd been breathing through a hole. Both perfectly healthy skin and flesh. "I could feel myself shutting down inside. I just...couldn't do anything to stop it. I could feel it happening."

That description brings the memories into even clearer focus, not that they were ever very far. He runs through their last days together on that mission in his mind, taking careful note of every mistake. Every chance he'd had to help Howard get better.

Particularly the most important one---when he should've been brave enough to kill that second monster sooner, before it had the chance to infect Howard.

The first tear trails down Cedric's cheek. "I'm sorry. That shouldn't have been you."

"It shouldn't have been anyone. We shouldn't have been on that bullshit planet in the first place." Howard's responding to all this with anger, because he needs something to go over the fear and that sick feeling inside. The feeling that is so powerful it completely overcomes the joy of living. "Why the hell are you apologizing?"

"I know," Cedric nods shakily. It was an awful place. All of them were in danger then, but...that death was the hardest thing he'd ever have to watch.

"Because---because I let it happen. I was supposed to kill that monster before it had the chance to infect you, but I hesitated. And then I had another chance to help, to think of magic that might save you, but I wasn't clever enough. I tried, up to the very end, but I failed you."

He's torn between relief that they're inexplicably alive in the here and now and the crushing guilt that keeps him from celebrating that like he wants to.

"I'm waiting for the part where it wasn't my dumbass move to try and shoot the monster off you." An act that Howard would not repeat, knowing the consequences, and that's an awful thought. Even though Cedric just saved him now from certain death in the coffin, he wouldn't knowingly sign up for death for him. Yet.

"Come on, let's get out of the graveyard. It feels way too appropriate."

It was a graveyard smash! (Terry and Dragon are terrible thank them)

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