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

[theboywhodied]

THE TRAPPED IN A COFFIN MEME

You and one other are trapped together in a rather small coffin. Both alive, don't worry! For now.

How did you get there, and how will you escape? All up to you!

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[iselldrugstothecommunity]

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."

[theboywhodied]

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."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"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."

[theboywhodied]

"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."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

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."

[theboywhodied]

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.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

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."

[theboywhodied]

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."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"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?"

[theboywhodied]

"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.

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"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."