XL: The Capitol.
Hale Mavala, 17
District Eleven Male
He hasn't slept through the night since he woke up in the first place.
There's no logical explanation for it, no nightmares plaguing his dreams. Hale does think he might be dreaming, somehow, but it's only darkness. All night, still, he tosses and turns and wakes up with the scent of ash surrounding him.
Upon opening his eyes it's no better. He sees phantom people everywhere he looks, dead kids walking on two working legs once again. He looks in the mirror and sees the very same thing looking back at him. Underneath his shirt is a massive scar that traces down the center of his chest; there's one between his shoulder blades to match. His nose is a hair crooked. He can press his thumb into a silvery-white scar along his bicep and feel no pain.
The worst part is, Hale feels dead. Whatever dead is supposed to feel like, anyway. Though his heart beats strong he feels listless, unemotional. Opening his eyes only to go to sleep the next night, except not really.
He just wants to go home. He wants to go back to Arley, shut their door, and pretend this never happened.
If only that was an option.
Until they're allowing him that opportunity to go home Hale has formed himself a little routine. Now that Eleven is the only floor without all of its former occupants, things tend to be quiet in the mornings. He makes sure to shower every single one of them to rid himself of some of that existential dread, as if the steamy water will wash away the death cloaked around his shoulders. Even then it wisps after him, lingers around him at breakfast and follows him all the way downstairs. At least having things to do makes it seem further away.
Every morning before he heads back underground he makes sure to do one last thing, collecting a second round of breakfast like he's done it a thousand times before. It reminds him of taking care of Arley, in an odd way, only Donatella is perfectly capable of eating on her own.
Donatella, because that's who she is now. Always was, right under his nose.
It makes his stomach roll to think how they all knew, the three around him, and yet allowed him to wander around like a fool, calling her Armina without batting an eye. Understanding why they did it is easy—taking that well for him would have been a miracle, especially given their situation. His anger and frustration has gradually swelled back out to sea since the day he woke up, since the day she told him herself. At least she gave him that.
Realistically, Donatella is the only person he has right now. With him decidedly less of a problem than the Fours, Celia has dedicated most of her time to helping wrangle them while he sits by Casi's beside, Milo locked up somewhere down the hall.
He has no one else. Donatella has never made him feel unwanted nor unwelcome.
Hale thinks that bringing her breakfast every morning has bridged some of that fear and distrust the two of them always held. She's hardly sleeping either, and he knows it—when she does sleep she's up at such early hours that eating breakfast is futile. It's too easy to bring some for her after he eats himself, so that he may sit in silence while Casi lies motionless between them, at least for a little while.
It's easier than talking.
This morning is different—they're letting him out today. Hale tries his best not to think about it but he knows his feet are moving much slower than they usually do, his fingers more hesitant when they trail across the buttons in the elevator, Donatella's breakfast tucked under his other arm. The sooner he gets down there, the sooner the possibility of Milo goes away. Once he's hidden behind that curtain he's safe. They'll take Milo away and then…
And then, well, Hale has no idea what happens. They wait for Casi to wake up. After that he's lost.
There's no avoiding how quickly the elevator shoots him down into the earth, the doors sliding open silently. The coldness of the ward greets him as it always does, one of the few remaining nurses casting a suspicious glance in his direction before she realizes who it is—Hale has become a familiar face down here, and not just as a former patient. They know he'll be here every morning, like clockwork.
The conversations are audible from down the hall, but Hale puts his head down and moves fast, finally, like he can breeze past it without being noticed. Impossible with his stature, but there's no harm in trying. He sees the white-clad feet of a Peacekeeper nearly blending into the tiled floor and it's that same man that steps back, bumping into him with a muffled apology.
He almost keeps walking. Keeps his head down.
That's what he should have done.
When Hale looks up there are numerous people looking back—that same Peacekeeper, a similarly dressed woman at his back. Another nurse. Seren Dobrana, something weary to her face. Almost cautious.
And, in the middle of them, is Milo.
His face is blank. Intentional. Hale wonders what it would look like if he wasn't trying to hide his true feelings. Though he fights for that himself, his stomach roils and rumbles. Pain bursts to life in his chest like the blade of his axe is connecting all over again.
Milo's eyes flick over his shoulder before he recognizes the presence behind him. "Hale," Donatella calls, her voice soft but firm. Milo's lips twitch with something unspoken.
Hale backtracks and then turns around, trying to crush the part of him that feels distinct terror into dust as Donatella holds the curtain open, allowing him to slip inside. His heart thuds like a drumbeat in his chest, so prevalent it's a wonder that no one else can hear it. When he finally allows himself to exhale some of the tightness within him releases with it.
He holds his hand out without thinking, relief flooding over him when Donatella takes her usual wrapped breakfast without comment. Casi is still breathing, all the wires and tubes making her look more and more like some robotic thing by the day.
All of the usual questions he finds himself asking don't come to mind as he sits in his usual chair, silent.
"Nothing's changed," Donatella says. Right. That's one of the questions. "She's still stable."
And what of Milo? That's what he really wants to ask. Someone will always be watching him now, of course, but is that it? They're all just expected to wander around in the same proximity and… and that's it?
Hale was already having trouble sleeping. He has no idea how he's supposed to close his eyes at night now knowing that a person he was beginning to trust, a person who killed him, is sleeping nine floors down.
They haven't given him a choice otherwise. Hale would run back to Eleven if given the opportunity, back to that shit-hole they called a house and the orchards still shooting up fresh sprouts from one of the last fires he ever fought. To his brother, and that's it. That's all Hale needs. Not this mess, not sitting and watching and hoping that someone will eventually wake up from the near-impossible.
He's tired. He's so fucking tired.
Hale almost wishes they had let him stay dead.
Micah Rossier, 18
District Eight Male
For all the people that should be roaming here, there's a strange absence of them when Micah finally goes to look.
An irrational part of him can't help but wonder if he's been lied to, Penny merely a figment of his imagination and the others are long dead like they're supposed to be. Why would Micah still be alive, then? He's not sure. He's not what the Capitol wants, not what they need. That was never going to be him.
Once Penny finally leaves him room to breathe, when Vance gives him permission to wander, Micah wastes little time. He knows who he's looking for without even having to register it, but no matter how hard he searches it's almost as if Hosea and Inara, perhaps both of them together, are hiding away. Avoiding him, if he thinks too hard.
Hosea died not long after Micah left him, so he's learned. That's on him. Inara put a knife to his throat and cut a bloody smile into it—he asked her, of course, but that doesn't change the outcome.
Micah understands why they'd both be avoiding him, but that doesn't stop him from looking. And when he looks and looks and looks to no avail, he keeps wandering anyway. It's better than sitting around and ruminating on everything that's transpired, or thinking about his family and what must be running through their heads while an entire country lies between them, a distance too big to close.
But still, he should have known. It's never what you're looking for, never what you expect. Isn't that precisely what goes hand in hand with their particular situation?
The first thing he sees when he opens the very last door at the top of the stairs is the Peacekeeper, the glint of the sun harsh and unforgiving against the front panel of their helmet. The distance between them and the figure silhouetted against the edge of the roof is great, but not great enough to be isn't the lower terrace, peaceful and sunlit. This is the unforgiving last layer between the building and the sky, nothing to save someone from plummeting off the edge.
No one should be up here, he thinks. So of course he is.
When Micah steps through the doorway he's struck by vertigo, the sky spinning around him as the weight of the drop begins all too real. The Peacekeeper holds an arm out—not to steady him, he realizes, but to hold him back. It's enough of a shift that the faraway figure turns around, suddenly seeming so much closer.
When Milo looks at him he doesn't seem surprised. Not in the slightest.
"Everyone's avoiding me like the plague and yet here you are again," he says. "Something tells me between dying and now you haven't gained any more common sense."
The Peacekeeper's arm refuses to drop. "He's not going to hurt me," Micah says, keeping his voice low. If anything Milo is more likely to hurt himself judging by how close he is to the edge; how has the Peacekeeper even allowed him so close?
He waits, but he isn't allowed forward. Micah steps around the arm holding him back instead, all the while imagining the Peacekeeper's irritated look beneath the visor. He believes what he said, though—if Milo wanted to hurt him, he would have done it while he had the real chance, where no repercussions could have come for him. If he didn't hurt Micah in the arena, he won't do it now.
Micah takes a few paces across the roof towards him before he stops. He knows what Penny's said, can remember the details all too clearly. In the absence of him not working up the nerve to watch the tapes Penny has filled in what he had missed, every gruesome and gory bit.
So he knows everything now. Or at least everything about Milo now as he stands here behind him.
Maybe Milo's right. Maybe he doesn't have any sense.
"I think you haven't gained any favor towards staying away from the roof," Micah says, and he's rewarded with a little huff, what he thinks is Milo's lips quirking up into something resembling a smile.
He has no idea if that's really a reward at all.
"Who told you?"
"Penny."
"How much did she tell you?"
"All of it." Micah swallows. "Everything I needed to know."
All the death, including the carnage that happened upon a replica of this very roof. When Micah looks down there's no blood at his feet, though he can imagine it all too easily. Blood that Milo put there without much hesitation, if any at all. A rational person would be scared. They would have heeded the Peacekeeper's silent warning.
"So you know everything," Milo says slowly. "And yet you're still here."
He killed Inara too, he reminds himself. Hunted her down with a purpose, almost like…
Like what? Like he was avenging Micah?
He doesn't matter that much.
Micah takes a step closer, and his hand has hardly left his side when Milo speaks again. "Remember what I said about touching me."
"You didn't kill me then. You won't do it now."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah," he says quietly. "I do."
Milo turns to look at him, finally, really look. Admittedly it's more intimidating now that he's not injured—Milo towered over him even limping, leaning on one side, and now that they're both relatively okay the difference is even worse. That's not what he's trying to do, though, Micah thinks. He's just standing there, no intimidation trying to be proven at all.
"Get away from the edge of the roof," Micah says.
"Or what?
"Or I'll pull you back myself," he warns. Not that Micah is anywhere near intimidating, but hopefully the threat of being dragged is enough to get them moving. Being so close to the edge is unnerving; all he wants to do is look over the edge, stupidly, and see how far the drop is. He can't look away from Milo, though, holding his gaze until everything else around them fades. There's no use in looking anywhere else.
He's still the same person that refused to kill Micah, who thanked him for saving his life before they saw each other for the last time.
Or so he thought.
Milo steps forward and practically into him, blissfully away from the edge. When he jostles Micah's side it's clearly intentional, just the smallest attempt to mess with his composure, and it works. God, does it work. When he stumbles fear slams into him like a truck, the thought of tripping off the edge and into nothingness all too prevalent. He doesn't think twice about letting his hand shoot out, grabbing onto Milo's arm before he can get too far away, and Milo—
Well, Milo doesn't do anything. Doesn't flinch or startle or shake Micah off. He doesn't make some snarky quip about not touching him.
The stupidity of it all nearly overwhelms him, but Micah is in no hurry to let go as Milo pulls them back closer towards the Peacekeeper. "Remember what I said? I still don't think you're a bad person," he says, voice hurried in the absence of breath.
"You're alone in that belief."
"Then I'm alone," he accepts, despite how bad it stings. He doesn't want to be alone, not in any regard. "Milo—"
Whatever he was about to say is quickly forgotten as he realizes how tight his hold still is, as Milo begins to pull him towards the elevator. He goes stiff, yanking his hand back, practically digs his heels in.
Not again.
Milo presses the button down all while the Peacekeeper watches. "You're not going to get stuck again, Eight."
Ah. So Micah isn't the only one with all the details then, is he? He tries to swallow but there's a lump in his throat—that, or a rock. It certainly feels like one. He took the stairs without thinking. Penny walked all the way up with him yesterday, too, a tight hold on his arm to keep him steady whenever his leg faltered. She never questioned it.
The Peacekeeper goes in first when the doors slide open, Milo right behind him.
And then they're looking right at each other again. So close, yet so far.
"Get in the elevator, Micah," he says. Nothing will come of it if he doesn't get in. Milo will head back down. Eventually Micah will force himself back down the stairs, too, at a snail's pace. Once he gets his breath back and his fear under control, that is.
That wasn't an order, but a request. And his name, too.
That's the first time he's heard his name out of Milo's mouth.
Micah steps into the elevator without thinking; thinking is too painful right now. He'll collapse, fall into hysterics. He watches Milo press a button but doesn't even see which one—doesn't care, either. Milo could take him any number of places and he doesn't think he would mind any of them, so long as it's not in this elevator for any longer than it needs to be.
The doors slide shut. He's still breathing. His heart beats on.
"You'll be fine," Milo tells him, and what he wants to say is you will be, too, but he can't. Micah can only nod, lips pressed together, eyes forward. And somehow, he believes him. It doesn't make any sense. He doesn't expect it to. There's not much he has any certainty in anymore, but when Milo says those words it sounds closer to the truth than ever before.
It feels like years before that door opens again, but Micah steps out unscathed. When he turns Milo is still inside, relaxed as can be. Like nothing ever happened.
To most people, nothing did.
"See you around, Eight," he says. Micah nods again, robotic. Just like that he's home—home for the time being, anyway. With the job of delivering him there completed, the elevator doors close in silence. There was nothing else to say.
For some reason, though, that feels like as far from the end of it as anything could possibly be.
Velcra Leight, 18
District Three Female
If you had told her how this all was going to end up, she could have predicted it exactly.
Being alone was a given—there was no shortage of adoring fans for her out in the Capitol, but in here things were decidedly different. It was too risky to be a friend of Velcra's, both in the Games and outside of them.
She would have known that had they told her ahead of time, and yet she wouldn't have done anything differently. The same people would have died. She still would have carved her own markings into their skin, cruel reminders of her prowess and their inability to escape. Velcra didn't mind her own little scars, but someone had to do something about the twisted mass of scar tissue that was her torso. A little line on the bridge of her nose, fine. A few on her arms, no big deal. Her stomach, though, made Velcra feel as if she had been butchered.
Regardless of what had happened, she was still the butcher. Not the animal. If she needed to get a hold of Two somehow and remind him of that, she had little problem with doing so.
Not that they would let her. They didn't let Velcra do anything. Outside of the people on this floor she had spoken to exactly three people since her awakening—the wary-eyed nurse at her bedside, good ole Peacekeeper Marconi that had been assigned to her, and the doctor who was planning a future cosmetic surgery to make her look whole again. Predictably Mazzen hadn't spoken a word to her, though that was intelligent on his part, and both Ria and Tarquin kept their conversations to a minimum. Clearly there was no pulling Velcra from the depths of her own horrific sinning.
Like they were any better. Her mentors both looked fragile, unassuming, but she knew what they had done.
Some would say what they had done was even worse.
Velcra busies herself with the coffee-maker when she hears someone else start up their morning routine. The last thing she chooses to focus on these days is the whims and movements of other people; if they're not going to serve her purpose, they don't matter. Marconi lingers just beyond the dining table, only halfway relaxed. Sleep still lingers in her eyes.
They couldn't look further apart in reality, but Velcra wonders if they gave her someone so similar to Lemaris on purpose. A person meant to be manipulated and toyed with, who will listen to what she asks of them eventually.
Surely someone out there wants her to do something other than wither away in here. That's not an ending befitting of her. Then again, Velcra doesn't think the one she got was particularly becoming of her either. It made her look weak. She didn't go that far to shriek like a wounded animal at someone else's hand, but she remembers lying there all the same, dying.
No one seems to care about the fact that she died. In fact, they seem almost grateful.
The footsteps behind her slow to a pause; they've noticed her, finally, having stepped out of their room only to be confronted by her presence. Velcra already knows who it is. No one else hesitates the way he does.
She grips the coffee pot in her right hand and fills a mug nearly to the brim, keeping it nearly black and as she turns, as quickly as anyone would dare with a steaming mug clutched between their palms. Mazzen flinches at the speed of it all, the sudden quickness in which their eyes meet. Velcra manages to reign in her grin, though she knows it's not all gone, not the way it should be. To think she still inspires fear in him when she killed him so quickly—what could she have done to his state of mind had she been given a few hours?
Velcra gestures behind her, allowing herself a smile. "Coffee, Mazzie?"
He stares. He wanted something, by the looks of it, but the speed at which he departs suggests it's no longer worth the price he would have to pay. Marconi follows his every movement until the elevator has hidden him from view, him and his rumbling stomach. It appears he'll have to find breakfast elsewhere.
When Marconi turns back to her, there's disapproval in her eyes just like everyone else's. "You wanna get out of here, kid? Work on not terrorizing him first."
"Terrorizing?" she scoffs, taking a sip. It doesn't burn nearly as much as it should. "If you think that's terrorizing clearly you didn't watch the Games."
"I watched enough."
"And yet somehow you still cling to an opinion on the matter that is completely invalid." Velcra hums thoughtfully. It's so interesting to watch how these official folk work, as if they don't walk around toting guns and tasers like they have any right to. Marconi would hurt her if she even took a step out of line, no hesitation.
All Velcra wants, really, is to get out of here, just like Marconi said. They can't very well prosecute her now; something about survivor's immunity, and all that. She'll go back to Three like she never left it, or perhaps even Five or Six. Business there would work just as well as it did in Three, if not better. It's worth trying.
Velcra takes another sip, this time offering a cheery smile. "I'll try. Is that good enough for you?"
"I suppose so."
She's not planning on trying—not even for a second.
Everything is about a game, though, is it not? She has to play along until everyone around her comes to a point of acceptance; they can't hold her here forever. Sooner or later they have to let her go, return her to the real world.
If not, Velcra is going to force her way out.
And they really, really don't want that happening.
Marigold Voss, 16
District Nine Female
This is nice, she decides.
Anything would be considered nice, really, if death was the alternative. Marigold remembers the feeling of that all too well, as much as she dreads it. Even the memories are enough to make her feel sick to her stomach, the agony and apprehension hitting her as if it's happening all over again.
The people who hurt her haven't come close, though. She's only seen them on that stage, Velcra far too close to be comforting and Ilaria poised in that chair, half-risen to her feet. Of course Velcra is still the more frightening one—as opposed to her near feral grin, Ilaria had looked scared herself. Seeing ghosts tended to do that to people.
Marigold was grateful for her ghosts, though, the ones that drifted around her every-day. Penny joined her for lunch as per usual, letting words flow over the table easily like they had been doing this their entire lives. It became apparent quickly just how different they really were outside of the Games; now that they had time to talk about it, Marigold couldn't avoid it. She didn't mind it, though, and it didn't appear Penny did either.
They had each-other. It was nice.
And then there was Ren, too, who had been gone most of the morning but returned to join them, sitting down at her side with a warm smile. Rooke's voice drifts over from the sitting area, soft as he rambles on the phone to someone. She's long since learned not to ask who he's talking to—it got her hopes up, at first. Perhaps she would be able to talk to her parents? Even Roarke or Taryn?
It was a no-go, though, at least for now. She would be back home soon enough, alive and mostly well. Ren would come back with her, she assumed.
She learns quickly though that Penny has no intentions to return home. Marigold didn't even know that was allowed. It turns out Penny has fled from Eight as efficiently as she ever could; they'll want to keep tabs on her until she turns eighteen, of course, but after that she's free. Marigold doesn't yet know where she'll go, but she doesn't think Penny does either.
As long as they all go to the places they were meant to, does it really matter?
"Where were you all morning?" she asks, gently nudging Ren as she leans past him to grab a platter of fruit. She feels so fanciful, almost like nothing is wrong. It couldn't be further from the truth.
Regardless, she appreciates whoever is trying to return them to some shreds of normalcy.
"Mazzen," he says simply, which is as much of an explanation as his following words. "Trying to distract him from Velcra. Y'know, the works."
He's so good—too good, you could say. Ren has his own things to sort through, his own demons, and yet he's always so concerned about everyone else. He checks on Mazzen despite their lack of a true connection, makes sure that he says good-night to every before he turns in himself. He never tries to push Penny out of this little safe space they've created.
It's been harder than she expected. She's hardly spoken to Lisse, and it's not for lack of trying. There's some unspoken awkwardness there, as if Lisse blames them for leaving her behind to her death. If Marigold could have fought those four in the mansion, she would have. But where would that have gotten her besides dead?
Inevitable, it appears. Still, that can't change what she did in the past.
No one has it any easier, as far as she knows. Penny hasn't made any progress with Lisse either, and while her and Micah have made steps he's still off somewhere else today instead of with them. And then there's the problem of Rex.
Rex really is the problem, you could say.
Ren's trying, of course. He's tried to see him, tried to talk to him. A random interference either stops him from getting close, or Rex outright refuses it from behind closed doors. Marigold doesn't think he's talked to anyone outside of Five's floors or Shoah Jensen since the day he woke back up. A lonely existence, he's sure.
There's a reason for it, Marigold knows. They just don't know the reason.
"You should tell him to come up here sometime," Penny says, tearing off a strip of bacon between her teeth. "Better than hanging out with the evil witch."
"I don't think the evil witch gives him much of a choice in the matter," Ren says, though he looks thoughtful about it. None of them would be opposed to Mazzen joining them—they're doing good at creating a little collective up here, a haven for everyone that feels too stuck to do anything else. Mazzen, Micah, anyone else… if they step through that elevator, Marigold will give them a chance for as long as she's able to.
She's unbelievably grateful for this, for a second chance at life. Marigold will have to continue shoving the nightmares away until they're gone for good, but she's willing to fight through them for now.
Of course she wants nothing more than to get back to Roarke too, to wrap her arms around him and kiss him senseless. She wants her home back, her family.
With a few more people added to it, so it seems.
Marigold looks around the table—it would be painfully easy to be swept back into the horror of it all. The arrows and the blood and Ren's undeniable fear as he dragged the two of them through the street. Though she watched it all on the screen, most of the actual event is nothing more than a blur to her, drenched in fog.
And maybe that's better. Ren's eyes are still haunted sometimes, and she catches Penny staring into space more often than she'd like.
But they'll be okay—they have each other. They always will.
It's not the ideal way to gain such things, but Marigold wouldn't trade it back for the world.
Varrik Varnett, 18
District Four Female
Devan escorted him down to the not-quite looney bin again.
He's attributing that to the suspicious noise he just heard from out in the hall. What the hell is she doing out there, bulldozing the place?
Maybe she just tripped. That would be fitting.
But, back to the task at hand. The task being how Varrik is going to get Shoah to stop staring at him. She does that a lot. Sometimes she even does it and then jots things down, like she's studied him for long enough to figure something out. Jokes on her! Varrik can't even figure himself out. How she plans on doing it he has zero idea.
"What?" Varrik wonders finally. He's talked to her every single day since the very one that he woke up. Apparently someone out there thinks it's going to do him some good—Rory thinks that, anyhow. He's not sure about anyone else's opinion on the matter.
"You're not talking much today," she observes.
"Weird, right?" Varrik leans back as far as he can in his chair, letting the front legs inch off the ground. If he falls back too far, the wall will catch him. No harm done.
Shoah scribbles something else down. Varrik squints, but he doesn't have a hope in hell of reading it upside-down. For all he knows he couldn't even read it staring at it head-on. When she looks up, he feels more scrutinized than ever before. Considering how heavily she's been doing it thus far, that's frankly terrifying.
"Have you tried talking to Alexa or Veles yet?"
Varrik just barely avoidings snorting. "I told you, if you think either of them are going to talk to me you're more fucked in the head than I am. Besides, why would I even want to talk to Veles?"
"Because he reminds you of Tristan?"
"Because he sucks," Veles emphasizes. "But sure, let's go with that."
Too much like Tristan, that's what Veles is. Apparently he never should have told Shoah about the guy if she was just going to weaponize it against him like she has any real clue what went on. Of course the bastard is still alive, too. Why couldn't they have just left him rot? It's not like he was worth bringing back—the world doesn't need another conceited asshole wandering around in it.
"What about Alexa?" she asks, leaning forward against the desk. Something about how she always calls her Alexa grates on his nerves—that's not who she really is. That implies, though, that Varrik has any right to know who she is beneath the formality of a name. Considering he got her killed, that's likely off the table.
"What about her?" he fires back casually, pointing his eyes towards the ceiling.
"Have you—"
"Talked to her? No. What, do you want me to get my head chopped off?"
"She can't hurt you here."
"Maybe you think that, but this is Lex we're talking about," he insists. "If she wants to hurt me, she definitely will. And I think she does."
He deserves it, too. Varrik deserves every awful thing Lex would do to him, for betraying her trust and for ruining everything and for what? Because he couldn't stand the sight of Veles' face anymore or bear listening to such similar words as he did back in Four? If he had known the outcome, he never would have done it. Even killing Veles wasn't worth her ending up dead too.
And not just her. Devan, too, and then him. Ambrose eventually, too. It all stems back to him making one stupid, rash decision.
It's a good thing he already hated himself a decent amount.
"Who else are you talking to today?" he asks. Deflection is a tactic worth holding onto—it's worked thus far.
He can't help but wonder what Lex is doing right now, if she's coming down here again today. Even worse, he finds himself trying to visualize what happened in here yesterday between the two of them, what Lex could have possibly talked to her about. Knowing what happened and her express avoidance in even looking at him when he emerged, she went off on a tangent about him.
A well-deserved one.
He really ought to force Devan in here; she hasn't been so keen on the idea thus far. Finally she would have an idea, though, of the practical torture he goes through every-day, far worse than anything he did to Veles. Varrik would much rather someone attack him with a chainsaw than be forced to talk about personal things with a practical stranger.
Even if he's done that with Devan, even starting to with Lex. That's different, alright?
It's definitely different.
"Well, Rex has agreed to talk to me," Shoah says finally. She's realized she's losing the battle, though he hears the words she leaves out. Unlike you. Varrik most definitely does not giggle, though he wants to.
"Does that mean I'm free to go, then?" he asks.
"Well, he won't be here for another half hour, but—"
Ah, no buts. Varrik leaps out of the chair before she can get another word in, offering her a cheery wave. "See you tomorrow, doc. It was fun."
He thinks he hears her sigh before he practically rips the doors off its hinges in his quest to escape. Devan is lounging about in the makeshift waiting area. The side table to her left has been moved, as if stumbled into or knocked over and then hastily replaced. Thankfully there's no one else there waiting. Not even Lex, this time.
Devan looks up. "That was fast."
Varrik is still keeping pace with his normal life, his old life. There's no returning to it now, but he can still pretend.
If that makes him delusional, then so be it. It's still better than talking about it.
Rex Bascom, 13
District Five Male
He didn't expect it to be so… quiet, down here.
Quiet's not so bad though, right? If it's quiet that means no one else is around. Rex is brought downstairs by a Peacekeeper, unassuming in stature and voice. They guide him to the door easily, and even open it for him when he begins to hesitate.
Shoah Jensen is on the other side, greeting him with an easy smile. A well-practiced one.
He knows what that looks like from seeing it on his father's faces, the liars he called friends when he approached. They were all so good at it—it was a skill Rex never quite learned. He was always more… brash in his methods, you could say, but they always worked. You couldn't deny him that.
"Good afternoon," she says. "Sit, please, wherever you want."
There's not very many options, but Rex shuffles to the chair closest to the door and wills himself to relax even as it closes behind him, the Peacekeeper left behind. It's not so bad in here, he has to admit. The colors are soft, the chair plush beneath him. It's better than dying on the train tracks to someone he thought he could trust.
No one was worth trusting. Every person was an enemy in some way. As long as you waited to see their true colors, they would always prove it.
He couldn't trust Shoah either, even if he wanted to. Even if she told him otherwise.
"How has your day been so far?" Shoah asks, taking a seat across from him. He eyes the pen in her hand, so sharp at one end, the blank pad of paper tucked neatly between her hands. Nothing's wrong—not yet, anyway. Nothing has to be.
Rex shrugs. "Okay, I guess."
"That's good."
Common courtesy tells him to ask her, too, but his parents were never so kind to one another. They were always screaming, fighting, showing love in the oddest of ways. That was how Rex grew up, and he still knows no different. Asking Shoah such a simple question would be like betraying everything he has ever known.
Maybe she expects him to ask as well—is that why she's silent, now, watching him like it's inevitable.
Rex squirms in his seat. "If all you do is stare, I'm not sure you're a very good counselor."
Shoah ducks her head with a muffled laugh, though he thinks he sees a bit of color flush her cheeks. Good. If she's going to make him uncomfortable he might as well return the favor.
"How have you been handling things since…?
"Since they brought me back? Why won't you say it?"
"Not all of your fellow tributes have been eager to discuss it."
Makes sense. Rex really doesn't want to talk about it either, though it doesn't appear he's been given much of a choice in the matter.
"Don't blame them," he says with a shrug. Death, as it turns out, isn't something as pretty as he always thought it would be. It's not all poetic. There's no rhyme or reason to it at all, not like he thought previously. If there was, Rex wouldn't have died the way he did.
"Is there anything you would like to talk about, then?" Shoah asks, and the words sound so genuine that he wants to believe she really cares. Someone has to, right? Not everyone in the world can be so bad. Perhaps Shoah is trying to teach him something different—with a few kind words and a gentle attitude, not everything has to be so violent.
"What did everyone think about me?" he questions, and he sees her mulling it over before he's even finished asking.
"Some of the audience was charmed by you. Some of them were… confused, I suspect, about your attitude."
"What attitude?"
"Your flippancy regarding the Games. Death. How easily you attacked the only person that ever seemed to support you."
He feels his metaphorical hackles raise, his lips pulling back in a practical snarl. Just like everyone else that's ever faced it, Shoah looks unperturbed by this sudden change. She has no idea. None of them do.
"Support me?" Rex laughs. "He killed me. I wasn't supposed to die then."
Or ever.
"It was accidental."
"Accidental? You have no idea what he was thinking. You have no idea what any of us are thinking. You're all too fucking stupid to understand how things work, all of you, and you'll never get it—"
The door opens. Rex's voice, nearly a shout, dies at the suspicious look displayed clearly on the Peacekeeper's face.
Shoah only smiles. "We're fine. Thank-you for checking in."
When the door closes yet again Rex still feels him bristling. Stupid, so fucking stupid, that's all they are. All they'll ever be. Ren and Shoah and his friends and everyone, alright, just everyone.
"Rex," Shoah says gently. "I'm here to help you. You understand that, right?"
No one ever helps him. They all leave him. They're all traitors.
No one helps him but him.
He balls his hands into fists. There's nothing to grab onto, nothing within arm's reach that he could use to smash her pretty little face in. His fists wouldn't do a quick enough job before the Peacekeeper intervened.
Rex lets out a breath between his teeth. "I'm leaving. And I'm not asking."
When he stands she doesn't fight back, and it's a wise decision on her part. The Peacekeeper doesn't look the least bit surprised when he appears again so quickly, as if they expected this from the very beginning.
Rex should have, too. He should have known.
At least now he's learning.
Didn't have anything written here until two minutes ago, certainly not going to start now. Hope you're enjoying the kids.
Until next time.