Oscar dreamed.
He wasn't sure if those were dreams or hallucinations, but whatever they were, they were certainly better than his immediate reality. They included his children, young and happy and tiny as they were as cubs, even if they had all long grown up and left Soto's pack; he saw his oldest daughter running to his side and nudging him to play with her, and he almost smiled…almost cried…he hadn't seen her in years.
Unfortunately, the hallucination dispersed with a blink of an eye, and he was left to gasp for breath, awake and feverish and thirsty. He closed his eyes again, and after a period of darkness, he saw Lenny and Zeke watching him, calling for him to help them; messy and clumsy as they were, they couldn't survive without leadership, even if the said leadership had been as poor as Oscar's.
He squeezed his eyes tight, not wanting to see that. He'd screwed up royally, he really did; first, he failed to protect his mate from the humans, then he failed to stop Soto in his lunatic pursue of the human baby, then he failed to recognize Diego's duplicity- Diego, that two-faced, traitorous bastard- and now he'd failed to keep safe the last of his remaining comrades. Good thing that his children couldn't see him now. What a disgrace he was. He had been.
Another hallucination came, though blurry and distant; Soto, still the powerful, wise leader of their pack, and happy, too; Soto who gave them all the feeling of being safe and secure, Soto, still able to smile, because his mate was still alive and well, Soto in the days when everything was still…normal.
The hallucination faded away as his eyes closed again. The blur of imaginary scents and sounds followed- the scent of his mother, his brothers, his mate, their cubs, their old friends, Zeke, Soto, even Diego, Lenny…he thought he could hear the mewing of newborn cubs and roaring of their proud fathers; either Soto or himself, he couldn't say…the scent of milk…scent of fresh blood…scent of…wet moss?
Another hallucination, of course- but such a convenient one. It came to him when his dry throat really wanted it; it was so close and real that his tongue instantly lashed out to taste it. He couldn't see anything, but he felt, really felt the water-soaked patch of moss right under his nose, and he greedily suckled on it. It felt good. How interesting. He'd never thought that hallucinations could be so…vivid.
And when his eyes temporarily cleared enough to see, he was welcomed by a most unpleasant of hallucinations until that point.
There, right in front of his hiding place, very solid-looking and unmoving, in all his hated might, stood Diego.
He hadn't changed much since they parted ways; he was just perhaps a bit thinner, but otherwise healthy-looking; much healthier than he'd deserved. That duplicitous, rotten, betraying…
"Wha'cha doin' 'ere, scum?" Oscar growled, barely managing to find his voice, unused for so long. And it bloody hurt. "Getta 'ell awa' from ma' private 'allucination'."
And he closed his eyes firmly shut. That was one member of his former pack he really wasn't looking forward to seeing again, real or not. But, unlike other hallucinations, when he opened his eyes, the bloody bastard was still there, as solid and realistic-looking as Oscar had ever seen him, looking down at Oscar with those cursed eyes of his.
"One bloody irritatin' an' contrary' whelp, eve' as 'allucination, eh?" Oscar growled on. "Well, if y'don'mind, I'd like t' keep on hallucinatin' 'bout my mate an' cubs, so kindly piss off."
He closed his eyes again, and didn't see anything for a certain amount of time.
Then it started again. Through flashes of red and blurs of gray and black, he saw his friends and family again, alive and healthy; he was again a young cub, learning to hunt, and his mother was looking down at him and his brothers with warm, loving eyes…he was a proud, young hunter, eager to prove himself, and was doing incredibly foolish things to get one look of a beautiful dark-furred tigress from a friendly pack…they were parents for the first time, they had two cubs, two daughters…Soto became the leader of the pack, and a darn good leader he was…his children grew up, and another litter came, and another after that…Zeke was there, happy for a change, that poor sack of wretched nerves, and he was saying: 'you done well, Oscar, old pal; you done well'…Diego, a cub when they found him, with big green eyes that made all females swoon instantly; even as a bloody baby, that piece of work knew instantly how to get under everybody's skin…Lenny, still a cub too, grinning stupidly, yawning at the sun…hunts, scent of blood, taste of flesh, pride of being a part of the pack…
…wet moss, again?
His eyes creaked open while he sucked at it thirstily; again, there was Diego, grown-up this time, and again, looking more real than any of the others…
"Persistent, eh?" Oscar snarled at him. "Toldya t' keep away from me private 'allucinations…"
Diego was silent. Oscar drifted away again.
Scents and images flowed; touch of fur against his own; milky scent of cubs; strong, proud voices of his packmates; breath of a female on his neck; warmth of her tongue on his nozzle; panicked voices of hunted prey; scent of blood…
…very realistic scent on blood, just like that water-soaked moss had been; those hallucinations were actually a good thing, bringing him exactly what he needed the most at the time. He couldn't see, but his tongue tasted blood- actually tasted it- and he licked greedily on it; it went smoothly down his throat…too bad that it was only his fever-addled brain playing games with him…but he didn't have anything against it, as long as it was making his departure from this world so much easier.
Next he thought he'd heard a familiar sound, though long unheard; a sound of food being regurgitated for a cub to feed before they can eat solid meat. He really, really missed his parenting days if he was having hallucinations like this…
And then he was cub again himself, having pulpy meat shoved down his throat, and perhaps he'd actually called out for his mom, though he couldn't be certain if he'd managed to produce a sound, or it was again only in his head…at least the pain was now distant; everything was getting distant, and then there were no more sounds, scents or images for him; as if he'd been wrapped in a soft fuzz, he sank, without pain, into blackness.
**
Agonizing headache was the first thing that Oscar became aware of. The terrible thirst was the next.
The light of noon sun was beating mercilessly right into his eyes; he groaned and tried to cover his face with his paw, but was instantly cut short by the searing pain in his ribs. One sharp intake of breath caused a bout of cough, mind-blowingly painful, wet, raspy and seemingly never-ending; it finally ended with him coughing up a disgusting mess of brownish, old blood and yellowish muck. The sight of it made his stomach turn, and he squeezed his eyes shut; coughing was painful enough, vomiting would make him pass out with pain again.
Great. Just bloody great. So the fever hadn't managed to finish him off. He'd missed the opportunity to go away in relatively painless peace of his hallucinations. Now he was doomed to slow, painful death of hunger and thirst…he laid, panting, drained of whatever little strength he had left, for a couple of minutes before he realized that something had shadowed the sun.
He opened one tired eye, not really caring which scavenger he'd find looming over him. He only hoped it would be something big and efficient enough to finish him off quickly.
Through the blurry curtain of his vision, he made out the orange-colored pelt and green eyes of another saber.
He blinked.
The saber was quiet. He- or she, Oscar's tired eyes couldn't tell- scraped up some dirt from the ground and covered Oscar's mess with it; then turned around and disappeared from view.
Oscar blinked several times more. It didn't help much for his vision to clear, or for his head to stop hammering. And it didn't bring the saber back. His nose was- at least for now- of no help; the fever seemed to have scorched it to the point of complete uselessness; he couldn't smell a pile of mammoth dung if it landed right before his nose. Another hallucination…?
He'd probably blacked out again, because the next thing he knew, there was blood dripping on his nose from a freshly killed fawn that hung suspended in mid-air above his head.
His head snapped up, sending a shot of familiar pain down his chest, but Oscar didn't care. He blinked owlishly at the prey above him, blood dripping from his nose, realizing slowly that it was a saber that was holding the prey dangling above him. This time, though, Oscar recognized the younger tiger, and instantly dismissed him as a hallucination.
"You again", he rasped out. "Have nobody else's death t' make it miserable? Told y' I want ya t' keep away from m' final thoughts…"
Diego- looking uncomfortably real and bloodstained- unceremoniously dropped the kill in front of Oscar, giving him a dirty look in the process.
"Eat", he growled quietly, and moved several paces away, seating himself on a large rock and starting to meticulously clean himself of blood.
Oscar decided that he might as well take the best from this very realistic hallucination and took his time on quenching his thirst on the fawn's blood. For imaginary blood, it served the purpose quite well. When it came about eating, however, he found himself simply too weak to tear a bite off the prey's flesh. He frowned in frustration, trying to claw his way into the fawn's soft belly, but he was unable even for such an easy task. He was as weak as a newborn cub, he realized, and sighed tiredly, leaning his aching head on the ground again. Never mind. Even the imaginary prey was too much for him to handle. He never thought he'd die like this, sick, alone and pathetic. He'd thought he'd die in a hunt, or in a duel, or in a fight with humans. This was such a humiliating way for a hunter to leave.
He felt a movement nearby. Diego was still there; he didn't vanish, no matter how many times Oscar blinked. The older tiger growled with frustration. Why, why was he doomed to spend his final hours in the imaginary presence of that worthless traitor? Of all those good tigers he'd met in his life, why him, why? Anybody would be better than him. Anybody and anything.
The imaginary traitor was now watching Oscar with inscrutable expression on his hated face. He got to his paws and in one big leap, he was at Oscar's side again. He appeared to be angry now, and a little bit disgusted.
"Enjoyin' yerself?" Oscar whispered.
Without a word, Diego bit on the fawn, ripped off a piece of flesh and dropped it on Oscar's front paws.
Oscar frowned. His heart started to pick up speed. The flesh appeared very real, and so did Diego's disdainful face.
Diego sighed and rolled his eyes. "Eat, Oscar, before the whole pack of scavengers rushes here to claim the kill."
"Yer real…" Oscar whispered. "Y'aint…a hallucination?"
"Brilliant observation skills. Now eat, or I'll do it instead of you."
Oscar wanted to do many things, none of which included eating anything Diego have provided him. He wanted to strike out and claw at Diego's face; he wanted to rip his traitorous throat out; he wanted to call him all kind of hateful names and kill him, slowly, for betraying his pack and his dead ones, for betraying his very species and being a shame and disgrace for all predators that ever lived, for surviving the injury that Soto had given him and that would have served him right if it had killed him, for having Oscar unrighteously overranked in their old pack and, most of all, for being so thoroughly cunning in his two-sidedness that Oscar had never seen it coming until it had been too late.
Oscar wanted to do all that and more, if he only could, but Oscar had never been stupid- except back then, while he was still holding Diego in his trust- and he wasn't going to start being stupid now. He couldn't begin to imagine what motives Diego had for going through all the trouble of keeping Oscar alive, but the important thing was that he did, and it had to be enough for now. If he pulls it through, if he manages to gather his strength…then he'll think about…the next step.
His emotions must have been showing on his face with humiliating obviousness, because Diego's face was growing darker by second, ending up in a superior snarl when Oscar took the offered piece of meat and swallowed it.
Next several minutes were spent in silence, Diego ripping the small pieces of the fawn's flesh and tossing them to Oscar, who accepted them without a word and without looking at Diego's face. But his stomach couldn't take too much of solid food; soon he turned his nose resolutely away from the last offered bite and stared into the wall of rocks before him, doing his best to keep his meal down. Diego wordlessly came to pick the refused piece up, and when he did so, Oscar caught the glimpse of his face and realized that Diego seemed to be equally embarrassed by this humiliating feeding process as Oscar had been.
The younger tiger took the rest of the kill and devoured the majority of the remaining meat. That being done, he dragged the remnants of the animal away from the sight.
The vultures gave the ill cat a few dirty looks and rushed after Diego and his cargo.
Oscar tried to put the head and the tail of this whole affair together, but it only made his head spin. Deciding to think it through later, he carefully shifted himself to his side again, and fell asleep almost instantly, only to be rudely awoken by something wet falling right on his face.
He immediately recognized a patch of water-soaked moss, and wasn't surprised to find gloomy- looking Diego hovering above him.
Crap. So it wasn't a hallucination. Crap. And the regurgitated, pulpy meat he'd thought he'd imagined being fed to…crap. Crap. Crap…humiliation washed over him like flood from which he'd barely made out alive, and for the first time, he actually regretted the outcome.
"Why'r'y' doin'this?" he croaked out, squinting against the light and into the obnoxious face of his enemy.
"Just bloody drink, Oscar. I don't have time for pleasantries right now", Diego snarled.
"Why-"
"Drink."
No place for negotiation. It had been that way since Diego had grown up. There had never been any doubt about who was the superior one. And Oscar, being used to be close to the top- or at the very top- of the commanding chain, hated it from the bottom of his soul.
He drank.
Diego cleaned up the mess they've made while they were eating and, without a word, thankfully disappeared from sight.
"Not givin'up hope, eh?" Oscar hissed at the vultures, who had in the meantime resumed their guarding spots on a dead tree.
"Hope is the last thing to die", answered one of them pleasantly.
Oscar closed his eyes for sleep.