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!

Comments

[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."