~Gio: Joker~
Pain.
I can't process anything else but excruciating pain. I hear Atty and Ori indistinctly, but everything sounds like I'm underwater. I can't make myself open my eyes, and I don't want to. I feel burning sensations of pain, unlike I ever could've imagined.
I'm exhausted and I really just want to die already. Get me out of my misery already… I want to pass out but the pain is excruciating and keeps me awake, trapped like I'm drowning at the bottom of the ocean and being burned alive or something of that sort.
I clench my teeth, barely even able to make a noise as the pain continues. Every once in a while I get out a groan or a whimper or even a weak cry, but other than that I can't make myself do anything. I occasionally feel a kind of numb sensation of gentle touches on my head and hair and shoulders, but it's so dull compared to the sharp, crystal clear pain that wrenches at most every part of my body.
Occasionally it will fizzle off a bit but then start up again right after. I can't think, everything is becoming indistinct and muddy in my mind and for pretty much all my senses. I'm so close to death, I should just die already and be out of this pain. But, no, every second I get closer to death and yet I just don't ever get there. Each minute I think it can't get any worse, and yet it always manages to. I'm so close to giving up, the pain is just too terrible… But then I feel the gentle fingers in my hair or the squeeze of my shoulders or the gentle touch of brushing bangs out my eyes and I keep on going anyways. I'll hear muddy versions of Atty and Ori's voices, and keep on going through all of it. My body's on survival mode, and it's not going to give up. So I guess I'm stuck here until I either wake up or die. And each second just gets worse and worse.
After so long in searing pain, the work on my body suddenly stops. The pain takes a long time to fizzle from almost intolerable to slightly weaker. I close my eyes and things immediately go black.
"So…" he was slightly awkward but still relaxed, just as always.
"So…" I twiddle my thumbs, fidgeting uncomfortably. He knows that's what I do when I'm nervous so I don't even try to do anything about it.
"Uh… How are… Things?"
"Fine." It wasn't exactly true. I mean, things are never fine with me. He knows that too. He knows that when I say fine I mean 'as fine as it's going to be when my life is shit.' He would try to help me, I know he would, if he weren't in such a bind himself. He doesn't have a home just like me, he struggles to feed himself just like I do. I don't blame him.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
We sit in a silence for a long time. I twiddle my fingers, bounce my knees, the nerves making me feel like I could run a marathon if I got up right now… I'm used to it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't suck.
"Abri told me that she-"
"Yeah, she told me too." I don't mean to cut him off but the nerves just make me speak before I was intending to. I hang my head. "Sorry."
"It's fine. You-" Probably about to ask why I'm panicking, but stops himself. Talking about it hurts me more than it helps, and he knows that too. "Er…"
"It's fine, really, I'm okay. I just…" I nervously snap the rubber band around my wrist, and the pain kind of jolts me out of my panic, only if it's even for a few seconds. I switch wrists to make it even and snap it on the other side. The breeze is cool as it blows gently on us from where we're sitting, but the sun is out and warm at the same time.
"Want me to talk about something else?" he asks, his gentle blue eyes glancing at me. His eyes aren't the piercing, shocking, bright blue that Atty's are. They're really not impressive-looking in terms of blue eyes, not bright blue or any kind of brilliant royal color. They're just very calm, the gentlest blue you could think of. The kind of unchanging, gentle blue that you could stare into forever and they wouldn't really change. Kind of like staring into the sky in the dawn. I've done that a lot, considering I used to pull all-nighters looking at the stars and just thinking about existence and such deep subjects as that. As I got older I couldn't really do that anymore, with school and work and all. But I always wanted to.
"Sure…" I say, picking at my fingernails. He starts talking about some of the people at school, about what's happening in school, about how one of the more fortunate kids let him borrow a calculator for their most recent math test, about astrology (which I find profoundly interesting) and the stars… I lose track of time and conversation every time I'm with him. The only real friend I've got in this shithole besides my sister. He keeps talking. I cut him off eventually (I always feel bad for doing it but he always insists it's fine and he doesn't mind) and very suddenly. "What was your reaction to Abri?" I was curious for… Reasons.
He shrugs. "She brought it up so casually I didn't get to tell her how proud I am of her. She was out before I could tell her much of anything. Why?"
I look up at the sky with a sigh. "No reason."
One thing about my sister is that she makes things look so easy. That's something I could never do. She can go up to a boy and tell him she thinks he's cute and ask him to sit and eat with her like it's the easiest thing in the world. She tells me so simply who she has a crush on, who she thinks is hot, who she would like to be friends with… Like it's no big deal. Like it's so easy. She told me she might have a crush on a girl so simply, like it wasn't really life-changing, just like it was so simple for her. She made coming out look so easy even I considered doing it. She just kinda popped it in the conversation so casually. So easily, so seamlessly… Abri is just good at stuff like that. Nothing throws her off. I wish I was the same way. Unfortunately, I'm the complete opposite. Everything throws me off. I don't like to deal with love because it's such a big deal for me. Love isn't easy, it's complicated and it hurts and it's uncomfortable… Abri makes it look so simple, but nothing's ever simple for me. Maybe someday I'll find someone that'll make it that simple, but the chances of that were already close to zero before I even made it to the Arena, and now they're as close to zero as you can get.
"You sure you okay?" he asked, looking at me so calmly and gently.
"Yeah. Of course." And by that, I mean that I'm okay as I'm going to get. And he knows that too. He pats me twice on the center of my back.
"You can talk to me, you know. About anything." He looks over at me, and I look away.
Yup. He knows. He probably guessed it. In hindsight it wasn't really hard to guess if you used your context clues.
"Yeah. I know. Thanks Simon."
My best friend is four years older than me, but that never really seemed to matter to either of us. We're both in the same range and trust each other and we talk about anything and everything. The only real friendship I have, and he's 21 now and out working, trying to get enough to get at least a shitty shack. I'm not even an adult and he's mature now, so it's just a bit of a disconnect at the moment. It'll get better, though, as I get older. We don't even see each other a lot anymore because he's working so much. He ruffles my hair and flips the dark bangs out of his eyes.
"Really, Gio. Anything. Any time. I'll always be here for you."
"Yeah…. Thanks." And with that we parted.
If only I had the courage to say something to him, to Abri, to anyone. Maybe then I wouldn't be so emotional and tense and miserable. Well, I'd be miserable whether I said anything or not. I'm always miserable. It's just how life's dealt it's cards for me. I'm not very lucky, if you haven't already guessed. Sometimes it looks like nothing will ever look up. Like I'm stuck here with this miserable fate. And maybe I am. But I can't give up yet. I still have things to fight for. Atty, Ori, Abri… I can do it. I know I can, I just have to wake up…
Wake up…
Wake up…
I open my eyes. I blink a couple of times and the Arena comes into focus. I see Atty and Ori's faces clearly. I feel a lot better, even if there's still such an aching pain. I think I might survive after all. I feel a lot better, though it's still veru very shitty.
"Gio!" Ori's voice is crystal clear for the first time since before the fight.
"He's awake?!" comes Atty's voice from a distance.
"Yes, Atty! He's awake!" Ori says, laughing a bit though teary.
"Kiddo! You're awake!"
"I'm seventeen…" I sigh quietly, my voice hoarse and just not delightful. Atticus laughs, a laugh that seems to break all tension that was hanging in the air.
"How do you feel kiddo?" Atty asks.
"Okay." There's a pause. "And by okay I mean totally shitty," I mumble, my voice exhausted.
"Let's get him up and get some food and water into him," Atty says. Together, he and Ori lift me up to a sitting position against a tree. It's slightly easier than the last time they did it, but moving sends sharp new pain around instead of the dull stuff I have to live with all the time.
"There. Here, I just made some meat. This'll be good for you." The serving is more than usual, which means that it was done unevenly.
"No," I say, my voice practically gone. "Even parts. Still."
"No. We can get more. Eat." Atty says sternly.
"Yeah. Eat. We agreed to have it be this way. Just eat the meat."
I don't fight. Maybe I would if my stomach didn't feel like it was eating itself alive. I eat and soon it's gone and I really do wish there was more. Ori slowly pours some water into my mouth from the thermos, and it tastes so good. My mouth was so dry and even though we were shaded, the cold sensation is so good. I sigh a little bit, feeling half-relieved at least. It's something.
"You're still not perfect, but you look much better," Atty says.
"You have some color in your face again," Ori says, sounding relieved to say it. "Cheeks are a little rosier. Less pale."
"My cheeks are not rosy," I complain. They get that way when I'm embarrassed (which I usually am), sure, but not all the time.
"Yeah, they are, just a little bit." Ori says, smiling.
"He's right," Atty says. He puts the canteen to my lips again and I feel relieved. I even get the energy to shift a little bit to be more comfortable.
"I did my best to stitch everything up. You were a pretty good patient." I try to think back to it but the memories all become cloudy and indistinct.
"It was torture." That's all I really remember.
"Well you're going to get better."
"Thanks to our sponsor you're gonna make a comeback, as long as you don't give up," Atty says.
"Promise you won't, Gio. Promise you'll keep fighting." Ori looks at me, his eyes concerned and slightly upset.
"I promise I'll…" I swallow hard.
"I promise I'll try."
~.~.
~Pontifex: King of Spades~
I was five. I was fucking five.
I didn't know anything back then. I played and had fun. I may've been hit a few times, but that didn't matter. Daddy got angry a lot but I always had Atlas and Pryderi there to help me and protect me.
It was just another day. It was starting to become summer, and the sun was bright and brilliant that morning and the grass smelled wonderful and the flowers were colorful and plentiful in the patches of grass I walked past. It was another day of school, of playing with Thatcher, of walking home past the Academy and pointing out how my brothers are in there. That afternoon the sky had darkened and the air had become thicker with the scent of the first summer storm coming. Raindrops started to fall as I arrived home.
It was another one of the days Daddy was angry. I don't remember what he said in particular that day, because as I said, I found it to just be another old day. All I really remember is a hard slap right to the face after a fit of yelling.
I was left whimpering again, but trying to keep back the tears like Atlas did when he was hurt. Pryderi was hurt too, but never as hurt as Atlas. That's because Atlas always shouted back at him and fought, where Pryderi just accepted what he said and moved on. I knew I'd have to wait for Atlas and Pryderi to get home to tend to the wound. My cheek stings and when I touch it I feel what I've come to recognize as blood.
I was fucking five.
It was a while of me sitting at the kitchen table, my legs not yet long enough to touch the ground, dangling in the air and my hands fidgeting, waiting for my brothers to get back as the stinging fades away.
Just when I think I can't wait any longer, two boys come in the door, tall and stocky with swooshy blonde hair, wet from the rain. I feel relieved. My brothers!
"We're home!" Says one, ever-so-slightly taller of the two. Dad looks up. My heart swells with childish happiness and relief at seeing them home.
"There you two are," Dad says, his voice gruff and cold. I can't take it any longer and run to them, and they smile at me and I know it's going to be okay. They have such pretty smiles and inviting eyes...
"It's letter day," Dad says, his voice with an edge. He glances between my two big brothers while I stay nestled comfortably in between them. I suddenly feel very confused. Letter day…?
My big 18-year-old brothers exchange a look. The temperature in the room seems to drop a couple of degrees.
"Dad... It went to Magnus Denali," Pryderi says quietly. The atmosphere seems to freeze over. My big brothers get tense and snuggling into them doesn't feel quite so secure anymore.
"Did it?" Dread floats into me like a low-hanging fog cloud. There are a couple seconds of silence, causing me to become sad quite suddenly. Daddy's mad at them again… But madder than ever before.
And then quite suddenly, all hell breaks loose.
My father (not my Dad. I was a fool to call him that for five years of my life) screams. Bottles that once held alcohol fly. Cuss words (what do those mean!?), insults, raising voices and screaming.
I don't know a lot of what he's saying, but I don't like it. My big brothers shove me forward. "Get out of here!" Shouts Atlas. He sounds urgent, not fun, not strong, he sounds like he's breaking down, but I trust him and Pryderi more than I trust anything or anyone.
I stumble to the doorway and briefly turn around to look back.
"Your words mean nothing!" Shouts one of the boys, "I've lived in this fucking house for too long! I'm done, I'm out, I'm leaving! I hope I never see you and your abusive, drunk, mess of a life ever again!" Pryderi strings his backpack back over his shoulders and goes.
"Pryderi, no!" I shout, beg, desperately pleading with him to stay while tears come to my eyes. My father doesn't stop screaming and cussing. I cover my ears, whimpering and wanting this to be over again. Atlas watches Pryderi go and sinks to the ground, tears coming to his eyes. My father doesn't stop screaming insults at both of them.
A tear rolls down my cheek, but immediately wipe it away. Real men don't cry.
Father grabs Atlas by the shirt and pulls him to his feet, yelling at him. Atlas stares up at him, his eyes glassy and wide, unlike I'd ever seen them before.
"I c-can't... I can't do this..." He elbows my father in the face and whips a knife out of his pocket that he must've stolen from the training center.
I was only fucking five, but I didn't want him to hurt anyone. "Atlas! Atlas, no! Please!" I beg, "Atlas!"
He looks at me, those eyes that I know so well, so broken and full of pain and sadness. He holds the knife to his chest, on his knees he was my height and he looked me in the eyes, in the fucking eyes he looked at me! "I'm sorry, Pontifex," he said. "Succeed where we failed."
Then, he plunges the knife into his chest with a loud, piercing scream, and drops dead.
I was fucking five years old and I lost both the people that I trusted more than anything else in the world. Of course I was angry. They both left me alone, by myself in a house with him, the person I can barely even call my father.
After the hardest night of my entire life, I still had to get up and go to school. I knew that my brothers weren't coming back. I knew I'd have to live like that forever. I was the object of all my Dad's rage, and I was the one thing he decided to take it out on until he passed out drunk. Not that I had any idea about drinking or anything of the sort. I just knew that he was angry and yelled at me a lot and hurt me. Of course that's all I knew at the time.
The next day at school everyone was abuzz with the news of this year's volunteers. I don't remember anything about the girl, but I do remember a little Pre-schooler hopping around during recess chanting, "My big brother's gonna be in the Games! My big brother is volunteering!" Oh, how I wished it would've been my big brother. Surely, I thought, Surely either of them volunteering would have made everything okay. All our problems would've been solved. It made me the person I am today, determined more than anything to succeed where they failed.
The Games consumed me, from that day forward. Everything I did was with the Games in mind. Everything I ever inspired to be depended on being where I am today. Everything I ever wanted relied upon being a Victor. It was the only thing I ever wanted to do with my life, because it's the only thing I could ever see myself being: vicious and mean.
I never really imagined if I would fall in love or get married, or have kids or get puppies, or even what job in District 2 I might like to have. No way. When I couldn't sleep at night, I pondered the setup of my future house in the Victor's Village. When Dad screamed at me, I imagined myself in the final fight, one step away from Victory. I trained with all my heart, I spent the longest nights of my life in the Academy, barely eating dinner, training until they forced me to leave.
It's the only thing I've ever dreamt of, and now that I'm here, it's kind of a nightmare. I guess I'm not so mean and vicious after all.
But… If I'm nice and fun to be around, and I'm not a mean killer, then… What the hell am I?
Broken, I think. That's the only word I can find that fits.
Just as broken as every promise that was made to me, by everyone I ever decided to let into my heart. I put my trust into them, but it was always nothing but a mistake.
Pryderi finally decided to come back for me, but only right after I volunteered. Of course he wouldn't care to come back before then. Get out of the toxic household, good for him. But I'll never forgive him for leaving me there.
I was five. Fucking five. I couldn't even spell my own name when he left me there. I wasn't ever his problem. Dad was my problem, and that was good enough for him. I have no fucking idea why he might have thought in his dense skull that coming back to see me would turn out well. I don't know what the hell he expected, talking to me for the first time in 13 years after leaving me in that house.
"Pontifex!" I had been left in a tight ball, tears threatening my eyes, but I would never let them fall. After taking so long to man up to be a Victor, I can't afford any steps backwards, especially not now. I look up, still bleeding a little bit probably.
"P…" I can't speak. I don't want my voice to wobble.
"Yeah, it's me, Pryderi." He's a man now, 30 years old. Last time I saw him was when I was 5. It's so fucking weird to see his face after so long, with that look of pity in his eyes like nothing's changed after he fucking LEFT.
"How've you been?" he asks quietly.
"Oh, so now you decide to care," I spit out.
I've been waiting for him to talk to me again. When I was kid, it was a hopeful kind of waiting. The kind of waiting when I woke up in the morning and my first thought was, 'Maybe Pryderi will come back today.' After a while, it turned into a back-burner thought, until I finally realized that Pryderi really was never coming back, and that he left me in this stupid goddamn house with this drunken lunatic of a man that pretends he's protecting me when he's the fucking problem! After that, I waited anxiously for the day Pryderi would talk to me again: so I could kill him.
I hate him and Atlas equally, because they both gave up on me when I was fucking five. But I can't exactly tell Atlas how much the thought of him repulses me until I meet him face-to-face in the afterlife. But he's definitely not off the hook just because he's dead.
Every night was me mentally reminding them and myself how much I despised them. How they both broke their promises to me. How they said they loved me and wanted to protect me, and how they left me to fight for myself. How I learned that loving and trusting another person is wrong and ends in tears, and I was just fucking five years old. If only I had learned better back then, and not let my heart overpower my brain. Maybe I would be half-okay now if I'd just become a Tristabelle and shut off. I'd do anything to go back and change it.
"Pontifex…" he sighs. "I'm sorry."
I'm not convinced. "Oh, so now you choose to apologize! Only when I outshine both you and your good-for-nothing brother do you choose to come here with your tail between your fucking legs! Do you understand what I've been through!? No, you don't!"
"Oh yes I do! I lived with the man for 18 years of my fucking life just like you did!" he retorts.
"No, you didn't! You lived with him and Mom when they were happy for 16 fucking years! And even when he got bad, you lived with him and Atlas! You two had each other to fall back on, when he tore you down you were able to build each other back up, and you were able to help each other and split his anger and defend yourselves!"
My voice raises and strains from holding back rage, but soon it all starts to snowball into chaos. "I took the man on all by myself for 13 fucking years, all while holding up my grades and training my ass off, and now I'm here and you're the one visiting me, and I've proven that I'm stronger than you and your dumbass twin brother combined! So of course you choose to kiss my ass now!" My voice lowers again, but I feel no less angry at him for the hell he's put me through. "You're just like him, alright. To you, I'm not even a person until I win."
"Pontifex-"
"Don't Pontifex me! You left me! You left me to die, to fend for myself. How old was I when you left me in that toxic household, Pryderi!? How old was I!?"
He looks at his shoes. Yeah, he should feel shitty. It's only the smallest little fraction of the hell I've experienced, and he deserves it. "You were only five. But Pont-"
"I was fucking five years old! No buts about it, I couldn't even write out Pontifex Gallivan when you left me in that house! You couldn't even take three years of it before you ran away, and I took fifteen whole years of it. You do not have any kind of position to come in here and tell me that what you did is okay. And you have no fucking room to tell me that any of my experiences are invalid."
He stares at me, his greenish hazel eyes looking heavy. "Listen-"
"Shut up! You're a coward, Pryderi, and your stupid brother Atlas was nothing but a coward too. I'm twice the man either of you were and are, even though I'm 13 years younger than you. And I'm going to prove that by being a Victor. Or, in the words of your good-for-nothing twin Atlas, I'm going to succeed where you two hopelessly failed. Oh, right, you weren't here when he said that, were you? You were already gone, weren't you Pryderi? You left us and because of that, Atlas gave up for good. And now he's gone. He's gone and it's because of you."
The next time I look over at him, the bastard is crying. I don't feel bad for him. All this time he's been running away from the consequences, but now he's finally getting what he deserved. "I'm so sorry," he sobs quietly, not looking at me. "I know I was wrong to leave. I was young and stupid and didn't know then, but I know now."
"I'm 18 and I know that you don't leave a five-year-old in a house with a lunatic like that man! And if you knew your were so wrong then why the fucking hell didn't you come back for me, huh!? Because you had 13 goddamned years to do it!"
He's silent except for the smallest escaping sobs. He doesn't know what to say. "I didn't think you'd want to see me."
"Then why the hell'd you come here?" I ask, my voice as bitter and angry as I feel.
"Because… I wanted you know that I'm sorry." His voice cracks and is ugly with quiet tears.
"Sorry isn't good enough. Not for the hell I've been through. I have to go win the Games while you sit on your ass here at home and watch me. Maybe someday after I get home I'll talk to you again, but until then the terrors I've been forced to live through are still fresh in my mind, and they're still your fucking fault. So don't talk to me again until I tell you it's okay to, and maybe we'll get a step above I-hate-your-fucking-guts. Now get the fuck out of here. I'm not forgiving you."
"Good luck in the Arena Pontifex." He gets up, still looking at his shoes, and leaves.
I wish I could tell you I regret what I said in there, but that's never happening. Everything I said to him is valid. I'd planned that conversation in my head for years and fucking years. Even if I may've regretted something, I can't take it back now. It's out there, the fact that I hate him and Atlas for essentially ruining my life.
And don't get me wrong, there are plenty of other things that have successfully ruined my life as well, like the whole Thatcher drama and the general shittiness of my situation and the risk of getting mugged (or worse) every time I walk home in the dark, but the shit all started with those two cowards.
"Hey Ponty?" Janie speaks so softly, but I'm jostled out of my thoughts and memories.
"What?!" I ask, still slightly stunned. Janie glances down at Dream, asleep peacefully.
"We're going to keep him around, right?" she asks quietly. "Even after… What happened with Empress?" She looks slightly sick just thinking about it.
"I'm not going to betray him or anything." But… He's not exactly the person I want to protect. If I don't win, I want Janie to win. I guess if we both die, Dream would be the number three. He's really not a bad guy. I'm afraid that with the next death, the alliance will officially be gone.
No. I don't want to think about that. Some Career I am.
But as I said, I'm not likable and friendly, but I'm not mean and bloodthirsty either.
I'm just broken.
A/N: And with that closure, I'm going to say that the updates will probably become more sparse for multiple reasons. 1) A lot of readers, and me, are going back to school. 2) There are some that aren't caught up and I want to give them a chance and 3) Life is just really busy. Not in a bad way, just very busy, especially as school starts. There's no way I'm giving up on this, though, ever, and there still will be updates, they'll just be more spread out! Thanks for understanding, and to my readers that are going back, I wish you the best of luck and a great school year!
Alright, anyways, onto other things. The 24/24 thing I'm doing is still open so check it out from my profile if you're interested! I'm still posting stuff to Tumblr so if you're interested check out the tag #celtic's syot. Other than that, I think that's it.
Chapter Question: Did you like the flashbacks? Would you like to see them for my other POVs? If so, who?
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