daybreakacademy | hollow plots and zombens

He smiles soft and sad, missing heart breaking in his chest as those tears begin. He doesn't tell Peter to stop them. He doesn't say a thing for a while, simply running his thumb over the boy's cheek.

"No, he wouldn't," He does agree by the end. His smile slips a little. "We'll figure this out, okay? I've spent this long trying to work my own...unlife. I'm sure we can find something for him too."

He doesn't know that. He's been trying to find a solution to his own troubles a long time and he's not even dangerous. In fact, he knows, a lot of the time there is no turning back. Death held on tight. It didn't like when people walked scott-free. But at the very least, they can try.

He moves, shuffling back to Peter's side and putting his arm around the boy again. He stares up at the dumpster lid, still flickering sporadically, shuddering and trembling every moment or so, but he's otherwise quiet and still.

Until he says, "We probably shouldn't wait here past sunrise. I don't want you stuck in here with my corpse." And he'd really like to keep his arm, if he can. Not to mention he's sure Peter's head is doing him no kindness right now as far pain goes.

Right. They can't stay in here forever. Peter couldn't save his uncle before, but maybe he can do something for him now. That's all he can do, right? Find a way to help his uncle rest, at least ...

And in the meantime he has someone else in front of him that he can help right now. Starting by not, y'know, making him turn back into a person while still missing an arm. His spider senses have died down, so he can only hope that means the monster has crawled back into whatever hole it came out of. For now.

"Okay," he says, swiping at his face. At least he gets his tears under control a little more quickly this time "I - I can do that, yeah. There has to be a way." He'd take Ben being a skeleton like Héctor, honestly. That doesn't seem so bad, minus the whole missing arm thing. "Where's your arm? Can you still feel it?"

He's gonna go ahead and start uncrimping the dumpster, though, because his head is just splitting right now. Stupid blight amulet. The sooner they get away from that, the better.

If he could somehow help Ben be a skeleton like him instead of whatever that was? He'd do it. But he's not sure these things come with a choice.

He laughs softly, ruefully. His head tilts back as he winces. "Oh, yeah," He says. "I feel it." It's out there, radiating worse than the rest of him is right now.

"I think I saw the bushes it go thrown to. I should be able to find it. I just don't really want to tug it right now." Dios, he hopes it will attach alright. "...You wouldn't happen to have any tape would you?"

They really, really don't, okay. Peter will be lucky to get whatever he gets out of this encounter tbh. Even if it's just sending Ben on his way back to the afterlife.

But - right, he has a job to do. That helps him focus, which is important right now. He carefully lifts the top of the dumpster, standing up in it. And offering a hand down to Héctor. If he has a headache, then poor Héctor could probably use a hand.

Uh. Literally.

"Oh. Yeah, I do, actually. It's right here in my --" Backpack, he wants to say, but as soon as he reaches for the familiar straps, he realizes that said backpack is currently back at the gazebo. And probably crushed by the Hollow, along with the homework he brought with him. Well. Shit. Can he tell his teachers that a monster ate his homework? Would that actually work here?

He laughs again and grimaces too as he realizes what Peter hadn't a moment ago. Yeah... back there. Hopefully with that thing not coming back to it.

"It's alright, I won't need it yet. But I'm going to need a bit of help... with maybe a few things." He's got one usable hand, a guitar, and a walking stick and...

He pauses, lifting his jacket to peer at the inside pocket. "What do you know? The tests are still here." He laughs helplessly then reaches up for Peter's hand, slowly rising to his feet.

"Thank you," He says. "We'll grab my arm, whatever's left of our things, head back. Sound good?"

Hey, that's something. He'll take anything right about now. And if the backpack is ruined, then he's definitely got tape in his room. He gives Héctor a gentle tug up, then moves to haul himself out of the dumpster. Not quite how he planned to spend the evening...

"Yeah, sounds great," he says. He's still kind of traumatized here - and this week is going to suck so bad - but this is a start. "Hopefully it just gave up for now."

He'll go hunting for his uncle later. After he helps Héctor track down his arm. He sort of side-eyes Héctor for a moment - does he need to be carried? Because he could do that.

He's... maybe not right there with Peter, but he knows for certain this isn't something he's likely to ever forget. He's grateful he doesn't dream. It's bad enough just remembering the way Ben split apart like that and being chased.

He thinks he'll get by without being carried this time, especially the further he gets from this amulet, but maybe a little help standing would be good. For now he focuses on trying to lift his leg up over the dumpster's side and spring himself up to straddle it before turning and sliding out with a wince. He breathes a sigh of relief that he doesn't come apart and therefore doesn't have to pull himself together.

"Hopefully," He agrees. He glances from Peter to the ground and back again. "We'll have to tell someone about this," He points out as gently as he can. "We don't have to say it was your Tío, or any of the other parts, but this could be trouble. A lot of it." For Peter and for who knows how many others. He knows this is beyond his ability. He just hopes Peter's not going to take it all onto himself.

Peter watches him get out of the dumpster. One hand out - but okay, Héctor doesn't need help. Good. Okay. That's a start.

He winces, though, at Héctor saying they ought to tell someone. That's. Completely correct honestly, and yet. He's not sure anyone else would understand, especially if they don't mention it's Peter's uncle. Wouldn't they just go after the monster instead? "Are you sure?" he asks, uncertain. "You said it yourself before. People don't react well to the undead."

That's why he's keeping Héc's secret, after all.

He frowns, and not in disagreement.

"I know," He sighs. "But this is really dangerous. You could've been killed. Others could still be." This is a really messy, ugly situation. There's no risk free way to do any of this. "

"I would rather find a way to help you both but... your uncle and I are dead. We've had our chance. When it's between you and everyone else versus beings like us? The living come first." That's just fact. Children before adults. Living before dead.

"Maybe we can find someone who'll understand. The faculty, for one? A few of them know about me."

That's painfully true. Peter is too much of a good guy to insist that his uncle needs to come before the people he might hurt, or - or anything like that. But at the same time ... if there's a way to do both, he wants that. If there's any chance at all.

He swallows a bit, nodding. "You were going to get help from someone, right?" he asks. "Did that go well?"

If that person helped Héctor, then they'd have to be trustworthy on this subject too. Right?

He looks uncertain a moment. Would it out the man, pinning this on him? And for that matter, would he be okay with that? Can they trust him with Ben even if all that's true?

They won't know unless they try. This is lives at stake. The Doctor will understand.

"Señor Ekkehardt. I actually did go to him. He started a mending spell, gave me that cane..." And then he broke himself and probably the cane too. "He knows I'm dead. Promised secrecy and everything. I think he understands how important this stuff is." He just doesn't know how that applies when the undead is actively dangerous.

Oh. Peter brightens, recognizing the name. He'd gone to him to get help for Kano, and he'd seemed to have handled the situation well enough. They can probably trust him to at least advise on Ben, even if he can't help? And if he tries to send other people out against Ben then, well ... Peter will just have to find his uncle first.

"I'll ask him," he says. And. Winces a little. "If he doesn't hate me for undoing all his work."

Sorry about your limbs and cane, Héc.

He smiles ruefully.

"This isn't your fault, mijo. Would be pretty dumb of him to blame any part of this on you. You didn't ask for this to happen." Far from it he's pretty sure. "And technically, this wouldn't have undone his work so much as... given him a new project." Not that he's super thrilled at the idea of having to explain this himself. Still. Priorities.

And speaking of, he's going to just start slowly hobbling his way forward, towards this bushes ahead. He's grateful to see, so far, there's not yet sign of sun on the horizon, and better yet, no sign of any horrible creature lurking in the dark. He's not sure he'll be able to run like he did again.

When they reach the bushes and those twinges of pain get sharp, he begins to search. Only to soon recall that it's hard to find things in the dark. He sucks a deep breath, closes his eyes and feels out for his arm. The upper piece goes flying back in place, snapped near clear around the end of it save for a crack that works it's way up. The other half flies up after and he catches it with his other hand before it can even try to attach itself. He releases a shuddering breath, bent nearly double for a second before he rises back up. He gives both parts of his arm a once over.

"Okay," He says. "It's not as bad as it could be." He dares to move his detached fingers and bites back a noise of pain. But they do, in fact, move. "D-definitely not as bad. Lets go get our stuff."

Of course he didn't mean for anything like this to happen. In fact, if someone had asked him for a list of things he definitely didn't want to have happen, it would have included his uncle showing up as an undead monster. Now it's definitely at the top of the list of things he really, really doesn't enjoy about this school.

(But Héctor calls him mijo again and. He'd be lying if that didn't bring him a lot of comfort right now.)

"All right," he says reluctantly. "I guess we can explain both things at once." It'll be better if Ekkehardte knows Héctor did this helping someone else, right? Right.

He helps Héctor search for a moment, then stands back to watch him push the arm back in. That. Ow. He wines sharply, rubbing at his own arm in sympathy pain. Being undead sure is a problem huh. "I don't see how it could be worse," he says, heading back towards the ruined gazebo. "Unless you couldn't find it at all."

He laughs weakly. "I never did tell you what happened to my one missing rib, did I?" He says, somewhere between a smirk and a grimace. "I didn't just lose that one somewhere. I shattered it. There was... nothing left but bits and dust."

He bobs his head, a distant horror in his eyes at the memory of that. He'd never wished to be able to pass out quite like back then.

"Even Ekkehardt couldn't fix that. But this, even if it can't be fully healed, I could tape this in place. But, yes, we could probably explain this to him at once." Ekkehardt might not officially be faculty but he's still probably more capable and responsible than both of them together.

"Though not finding it, that would be pretty bad too. Less painful at some point but... you know. I like limbs."

Oh. Oh. Peter pales instantly as the implication hits him. Painful and horrifying, awesome. That Hollow definitely could have pulverized Héctor's arm if it had wanted to. Good thing it stuck to just breaking it and moving on.

"Uh, I like limbs too," he says. "And I don't really wanna find out what happens if I attach a full prosthetic to a magical skeleton." Would it get covered in flesh? Would Héctor just have a robot arm? That - would actually be an interesting engineering project, but. Focus, Peter.

He clambers up what's left of the gazebo and fishes his backpack out of the wreckage. Well ... the good news is that the tape seems all right, so he pulls it out. The bad news is that the monster skewered a hole through his backpack, so. Uh. Yep. That's a ruined set of homework. At least the practice notebook was shoved aside, so that's intact. Not so much his exercises and the textbook itself. Sigh.

"Lemme at least get it back in place," he says, holding up the tape. "That's the least I can do."

Since this is kind of his fault and all.

It's honestly such a ridiculous statement pulled out of its context, he can't help but laugh. Hooray limbs. Maybe the stress of all this is getting to him.

"I have the feeling that whatever way we did it, things wouldn't quite work out as planned," He agrees. He doesn't really want to imagine it too much beyond the image of him leaning, lopsided, to the heavier prosthetic arm.

When they reach the gazebo he sighs sadly, seeing his old haunt torn to bits. Probably for the best, but still.

He looks relieved to see the tape, even know what's coming. "Okay. I'm going to put this as well in place as I can and you tape it fast and thorough as you can. But don't layer the tape too much, this is still still going under flesh." And all he has to do is try not to make too much noise. He can do this.

He sucks in a breath, hold out his upper arm, then quickly connects the lover half along the break line. He doesn't quite get it fit exact on the first try but he does eventually get it with minimal whimpering.

"Okay, go, go," He says, once he's got it. His head bows as Peter tapes. He really can't wait for the pain of this one to fade.

Lopsided, overweight, all of those things probably. Which means Peter would have a lot of fun designing it but Héctor probably wouldn't enjoy testing it.

Anyway. He's got more important things to do. Like - watch Héctor set his own freaking bones, holy crap. He winces just watching the guy do it, remembering his own broken bones from childhood. Also from Spider-Man-hood. At least after he started getting tossed into buildings he had a healing factor to make up for it? But then he'd had to set his bones himself instead of going to a doctor so. Uh. Yeah, he's feeling way too much sympathy pain.

"You're way too good at that," he says, immediately leaning in to tape once everything's in place. He's at least a good hand with it, and his strength means he doesn't really need to wrestle with even a shitty roll of tape like this. Wrap, tape, and tear. Move on to the next section. "How many times've you broken something?"

And does it hurt like this every time? That's the implied question here.

That sounds about right.

He laughs weakly once more, knowing it's not meant to be a complement, but also feeling that laughing about it is easier right now. It covers up any noises of pain while Peter tapes it up.

"Are we talking break breaks or are we counting cracks?" He asks. And then immediately realizes that's maybe not the best thing to ask or even think about.

"Thankfully, not too many more breaks than the ones I've told you about. For whatever healed... broke my arm as kid while alive, got my head a little but nothing serious. I had a few small breaks here and there when I first woke up dead but, uh..." How does he put this? He ponders it-- and he'll give peter this, it does distract him.

"When my kind first wakes up dead it looks... different? The bones are really clean and they can still heal a bit. Not superhuman fast or anything, but heal. Our markings are usually brighter. But then... over time... the bones start to get more yellow and dusty... weaker... our bodies are looser, easier to come apart. Our markings usually fade until there's just the indents. By that time there's no more healing anything. We just replace and hold together what we can. We all helped each other too, so, technically, I had some practice on others." Even if he was more a general disaster than those others.

He's missed the implied question but he's probably given something worse.

That's. Uh. Yeah, that answer is way worse than anything else Peter was picturing. He's alarmed by the long list of breaks to begin with, but when Héctor starts talking about his markings fading and the bones just not healing any more? He sucks in a sharp little breath, immediately turning to look at Héctor's face. Marks are still there, right? Maybe not visible right this second but present right?? Thanks Héctor, he has a new nightmare to go along with Hollow!Ben attacking him.

"What happens if you can't heal at all?" he asks, even as he carefully finishes setting the tape. The tape is probably an answer in and of itself but. He has to ask, despite knowing he doesn't really want the answer. "Does - does the magic run out? Do you just fall apart completely?"

Héctor has said before that he doesn't know how much time he has. Is that what he meant?

Thankfully, he's still got some good color to his markings. There's fading, certainly, but they're not completely rubbed out.

Less thankfully is the realization that he's an idiot and scaring an already doubly traumatized kid.

"Ah, the healing only lasts for a little while after death. Like, two, three years, maybe five or six. I just meant my breaks are pretty much what you can see. It's really just a fresh-bone thing to be able to heal. Not healing isn't necessarily too indicative of anything," He assures. Because he's not healing. He's told Peter he doesn't. Except with Ekkehardt's help that is.

As for the rest of that... "I'm not sure if this is the best time to talk about all that stuff. You've had a long night."

Even if he hadn't told Peter, the kid would have figured it out anyway. What with the taping and needing to go to Ekkehardt in the first place. THat's sort of why he was asking in the first place. If Héctor's already in that state, well ...

He swallows, thickly. This probably isn't a good night to talk about it, no. He's still raw and bleeding on the inside, even if he's not especially injured physically. "You still need to take care of yourself," he says, unhappy but not pushing for more explanations. For now. "You need to stay as long as possible."

Because this damn kid attached to you now, Héctor, and you're going to make him incredibly sad if you manage to get yourself faded or killed. Tonight has just hammered that home.

One mortality crisis at a time is preferable if they can't just skip having those altogether. He doesn't really know if he wants to talk about that stuff on a better night, but he knows he will if Peter asks.

He looks sadly over at the boy. "I know," He sighs, quiet. "I'm trying to. I still want to get home someday." He wants to see his girl. He wants to be there for her as long as he can. He can't do that if he's going to dust before he makes it to Mexico.

"...But that doesn't mean I was going to let you get hurt back there," He says. "I don't regret this. I'll say the same to you. Keep yourself safe while I can't be there, okay?"

He can trust Héctor on that front at least. If he's trying to get home to his girl, he probably won't get himself killed. Probably. Peter can hope.

At that request, Peter hesitates. But - it's the same thing he's requesting from Héctor, right? Right. "I'll try," he says. "I've - I've gotta do something about this. But it's no good if this thing kills me so."

He'll get into danger, that much is for sure. But he'll try not to die.

He nods at that answer. He's still worried. He doesn't fully trust Peter to look after himself as much as he should. But he can't always be there even if he wants to. He doesn't have a choice.

His taped up arm is lowered down with a wince and a strained breath. But then in turn his other hand rises, touching gently to Peter's face before smoothing back his hair and then dropping. "Do your best, Mijo. Whatever you've got to to be safe."

He turns back to the wreckage, scanning it all until he sees something shine. From the rubble he tugs free his new cane, now warped out of shape. He looks sadly at it then tucks it under his arm, sifting about some more with his food. "You don't see my guitar do you?"

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