thearena | Wear a necklace of rope, Side by side with me.

Entry tags:

Wear a necklace of rope, Side by side with me.

Who| All those on the breakout mission and all those being made to fight against them.
What| The liberation of District 4.
Where| District 4.
When| This week.
Warnings/Notes| War, violence, death. Please warn for more in headers.

The ocean is a calm clear beauty only for a short while. Storm clouds loom on the horizon, dark and massive beasts prowl quickly forward and growing size. The waves grow higher and higher over time, crashing violent upon rock, dock, and shore alike. One wrong slip, and the ocean may very will claim you for its own, war be damned.

The once bright and friendly tourist city and pier is on total lockdown. The businesses (curios shops, restaurants, and even games and rides) have closed their doors and barred them with wood. One of the hotels has been turned into the Capitol-soldier boarding and war room, a refuge for Peacekeepers in the new uprising.

Said Peacekeepers are struggling here, quicker to react due to the nature of the District's people. There is an overwhelming amount of rebels here, perhaps even the entirety of the District. Many of them, as comes from being a former career District, know how to fight, make traps, and generally outlast their opponents. Capitol soldiers will be stretched thin trying to help the Peacekeepers settle this District's ire. The people of District four want vengeance.

Everywhere beyond the tourist's city is rebel territory. Propoganda is rampant here. It's greatest control is the weather washing it away. Yet still words can be seen such as in the face of adversity; stand together! and TO BRAVERY! and Time's up, Capitol.

The war continues, and in the back of everyone's mind is a familiar phrase; may the odds be ever in your favor.

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Meulin isn't the only one who can map the district they both used to call home, who walks the sand like a ghost. Or prowls it like an animal returning to its territory to find it doesn't quite belong to him anymore, in his case. But the Capitol has plenty of others who know the lay of the land even better than him, and that's not why they've brought him here. They've never wanted him for his brain.

It means that he's not at a disadvantage when compared to the rebels who live in the district - traitors - which is a nice change from every other battle that Derek's been in since the war started. And it means he can move off on his own, when he's directed to, on the hunt.

When he sees a flash of a rebel uniform, one of them standing off by themselves, he pauses only to listen carefully and scent the air to make sure it isn't a trap before he moves in. He crouches low to the ground, picking his way over slow and quiet, and ignores the nagging feeling in his mind that there's something he's missing.

He lunges at her with a snarl when he's close enough, and it's only then that her scent clicks in his mind, that it pairs with the glimpse he sees of her face. Derek twists, rolling to the side and then springing back up to circle her warily.

The battle is -- easy, yes, gliding across sand and surf and stone, spear in his fist, blood spraying. An offering, a sacrifice, blood spilled in the name of divinity he does not believe in. Hope, faithless and desperate, stolen, cradled between his clawing hands like he could keep such a fluttering, flitting thing.

It escapes, gleaming, holy, aching, seeps from between his fingertips, warmth leeching from him the longer it gets. Days, weeks, months, years -- he doesn't know, he doesn't remember. All that he is is battleborne, blood and blood and blood. A fight kindled within him that he cannot sustain, feeding upon his flesh, hungryhungryhungry. He feeds it of himself, slivers of hope and dream and skin and fat, cut from his ribs, deeper and deeper each time in begs. It offers him strength, strength in bursts, abundance, limitless and yet -- ending.

There, before him, coils the end of his rope, the string of his fate, cut by gleaming scissors, fraying and unraveling in the loss of his completed self.

So he fights, feeding the flame of his agony, his vengeance, feeling it lick his fingers, burned, charred, further and further though it burns colder and colder in the very pit of his gut. The blood appeases it, each stab and twist and choking scream stoking the flame higher. He fights, he fights. It is all he has, all he knows. Neverending, until suddenly --

Chuck, the ghost whispers, brittle against too much teeth, aching in the hollowed space between them.

The spear is slick with blood in his hands, knuckles gone white with agony. No, no-- this is a trick, it must be oh, god why? But he knows, he does. If this isn't his own mind sending him spiraling then it is the Capitol, fingertips gentle as they dig into the rungs of his spine, curl into the soft yield of his brain. And somehow, somehow he's almost glad, almost grateful. He's missed Derek so much, as if something essential had been cleaved from him. The breath from his lungs, the beat from his heart, gone gone gone without so much as a goodbye.

Derek, his mind screams, weeps, begging, beckoning. Please, please, end this, end this agony, he's been waiting, he's been suffering. Searching, hopeless and hollow, vengeance written into each bone. Dulce et Decorum Est -- Mori, Mori, Mori.

He swallows, thickly, throat clicking against the screaming void beneath his skin. The rebellion's grey fits him, but only because it hides under the red, the ichor, a soldier's initiation once more. He's seen more battle than many of these people, from Arena to Death, even if it wasn't his own. But now, now --

"Stop it." He commands, voice crackling, wide eyes darkening, narrowing, fury carved into his very being. How dare, HOW DARE THEY? His spear lifts, as if to settle between ribs, howling, but he can't -- the point falls, numbly.

"It's probably both!" He calls out his answer at the top of his lungs, giving no thought to the attention it might be drawing, because he's just so damn happy. When was Nitou's head ever working well, har har?

He's at the tree now, several feet away from his friend, eyeing the gun then eyeing the rope that he's suspended by, looking ready to snap his sword into a gun and fire a shot to get the guy down, but... "You feeling more like yourself, these days?" He should probably be a little careful...

What did they do to him?

The thought rings crystal and clear. It's not the first rebellious thing that's gone through her mind. It's not even the first one free of the flinches and sudden intruding thoughts of her Capitol allegiance. Yet it's the first one that rings so solid and true and personal.

What did they do?

His teeth are bared as he lunges and she flinches, taking a step back. Teeth unlike anything he'd had before, morphed into fangs that snap shut just in time. His fingertips are capped with claws. There's something else, something about his face, but she can't place it. It's buried under the way he moves. The way he acts.

The way he sees her, actually sees her and twists away. She's a friend. She's family. She can sense the confusion in his gaze, as it follows her round and round. Her face crumples in sympathy. The questions she hadn't asked are answered anyways.

"Oh Derek, what happened to you?"

Chuck is a fire, burning bright enough that it reflects in the too-green of Derek's eyes, twisting and shimmering. Derek watches, a quiet thrill spreading through him at the way Chuck moves - he's Striker Eureka all over again, tarnished by the wolf he's spent too long with. But he's beautiful - Chuck is always beautiful, and he's never more within his element than when he's fighting for his life.

It's only when Chuck speaks that Derek snaps out of it. He stares at the spear as it lifts, and there's a part of him that screams to take out the rebel that threatens him, but he still doesn't move. If Chuck's pointing a spear at him, he must have a good reason to. He watches it fall, and doesn't understand what he feels.

"The rebels took you."

It hurts, trying to think this out, and there's an irony in that somewhere. All the times he pretended like thinking was hard, like it took too much out of him to figure out what was going on and so he just gave up.

He can't give up now, not even when there's a pounding behind his eyes that makes it seem like he can feel every single blood vessel pumping there, each an echo of pain. It's Chuck, and Chuck is the only thing that matters - the Capitol is only thing that matters - the most important, they said the rebels took him and Derek was fighting for him, for them. The Capitol is always right, and yet here Chuck is.

His voice is cracked and there's too much rage inside him, more than Derek's ever seen, but he's here. The longer Derek looks at him, the more he sees - the bruises and the fury, the ache of hopelessness, and the Capitol is right. The rebels took him and there's been no one there, no one to bleed the fury from Chuck before it consumed him, no one to stand at his side to dissuade those who thought about fighting him and join the battle against those who did anyway.

There's been no one, and the only thing that Derek promised that ever meant anything was that that wouldn't happen.

Derek keeps moving forward, reaching out to pull Chuck into his arms, and right now he doesn't care if Chuck does decide to slide the spear between his ribs, in the hollow of his chest - it's been empty since they took Chuck away from him, and if Derek can't have him back now than he'd rather have the tip of a spear.

Edited 2016-04-05 05:03 (UTC)

Is it someone you know if they're wearing ridiculous armor and you can't tell it's them? For Haruto has weighed the balance of 'having the mana to make it to the end of this fight' and 'not get shot to death by a Capitol soldier' and decided that the right choice for defending this supply stash was to transform. Which he does, noisily but ducked back inside the building, not wanting to get shot while he swapped rings around and conjured magic circles and his belt helpfully called out "WATER, please!" and began to sing. Shot at after being transformed, that's just fine. He could handle it.

It's the moment he steps back out, swapping one ring for another while he does, that he sees who doing all that screaming to go with the yelling and it stops him short. He freezes, ring slipped onto his finger but hand not dropped away to flip his driver and set it to cast another spell. "Harley?!" He realizes that she's alive, and he feels a burst of joy in his chest. Then he realizes that she's fighting against them, and that joy curdles, dies, and becomes a lump in his gut.

Fire, yes, he is a fire – burning, gleaming, devouring. Chuck burns red, the color of his hair weighed down with darker blood, brighter against pale skin and grey clothes. The ghost’s eyes -- Derek’s eyes -- gleam like lamps, too-green, shimmering, shining, the luminescent glow of eyes in the dark. He’s beautiful, terrible, this being created of the base mold of his fiancé and changed. Edges where before there were none, the smoothed, familiar boundaries warped and twisted, teeth and claw and something other.

The spear settles between them like a threat, a promise, a plead. Those eyes, fey, unfamiliar even in the beloved familiarity, settle helpless upon bloodied promise. Deep, dark, gleaming, like the unknown fish deep down beneath the waves that sometimes wash ashore. Chuck swallows, grip tightening, shifting, green glass eyes flicking down down down. Something twists in the hollow of his chest, aching, trembling, the toll of bells in the dark, lowing.

How does he breathe, here? How does he--

“No.” He snaps, snarl caught in his throat, unheeded. Yes, he howls, desperate, aching. Water in his lungs, blood in his mouth, bruises blossoming and aching and unending. He wants to scream, to cry, agony agony, as his voice drops, softly. “No.”

The point of the spear drops further, threat leeching from him, strength fading as the flame dies, down down down, embers and ash and charred flesh. It hurts, aches, oh, Derek -- this ghost, this beloved being, steps forward and Chuck steps back. Instinctive, like a wounded animal shrinking back from rough hands. The tension trembles through him, spine unbowed, shoulders straight, the dying gasp of a guttering flame.

But he – he can’t. He can’t stray from the offering before him. It’s a special hell, he knows, crafted just for him, chains and cages and cracking bones, keeping him shackled with the bones of the one he loved. He steps forward, sharp, quick, breath rasping in his throat, reaching forward. God he’s so warm, soft beneath the calloused palm of Chuck’s hand, real in a way that hitches a sob, unheard, thick upon his tongue.

Whispers, softly, tenderly, agony upon agony, too close, too much.

“They killed you.”

Maybe surviving isn't living. But Chuck doesn't want to live. Can't, not with this wound cut deeply into the very core of him. Slow, agonizing, bleeding drop by drop, infection set into his veins, into his nerves, eating him from the inside. Chuck doesn't want to live, not when Derek isn't here at his side, not when the only thing that's every made it good and real has been torn asunder, left to molder in some mass grave somewhere. Like he never won, like he never mattered.

Derek was all that ever mattered, all that he had.

Now, Chuck has sorrow, though it is tempered by revenge, horror, a desperate, aching need. He has vengeance, bloodlust, a predator lying in wait beneath his skin. She dips down, elegant and liquid, gentle as sand slips through her fingertips, a memory -- and comes up with a shell. Imperfect, shattered and spiraling, delicate with the promise of broken beauty. Worthless. It drops into the sand as she stands, face turning to him like a flower to the sun.

"Are you?" He queries, instead. An evasive answer, maybe. But he doesn't know. Will he return? Maybe, if he survives this battle and the streets he'd once lived. Maybe, if he doesn't succumb to the agony that eats him. Maybe, maybe.

"Maybe."

Staying here might have been tempting if she wasn't more aware. The gaze on her, the traitor, the one who spoke for the Capitol, the one who left for the rebellion. They must judge her. They must wonder where her loyalty truly lies. She's never sure herself. With her friends? With her family? With one of those two monolithic sides?

Staying here among all these people who have seen her say things they so bitterly disagree with...would that be safe? Would that be anything worth doing? Does she want to stay where she's not wanted, alone, without her friends or family?

"This is home. And it's not. At least I have friends in Thirteen who..." She realizes then she never told him. Never told him. Not about why she was there. Not about what Kurloz did. Her breath escapes her in a sigh that might be more frustration than weariness. She doesn't want to admit it. Doesn't want to tell him. Her lips part only to admit the barest things.

"Who understand."

"I'm saving your life." The ship keens as if to negate his point, lightning flashing down the coast at a mildly concerning distance and forcing Albert to steady himself - and Luna if necessary - against nearby rigging.

"Or giving you a better chance," he amends. "I'm trying to get you back over. I couldn't say so before for obvious reasons."

He just hopes she believes him; the amount of self loathing he's racked up at telling her she's as human as he is, and then using her distinctly non-human programming against her is enough to send him into a spiral when this is over if she doesn't understand his motivations.

Chuck's afraid. Chuck's never been afraid, not ever - at least not of him - and Derek doesn't understand why Chuck pulls back from him. It's happened once before, Derek remembers that, remembers tears on Chuck's long lashes and a divide between them wider than a few inches on the bed could explain, but they'd solved that. It's -

His brows furrow, trying to think through it, but he goes blank for a moment, eyes unfocused in a way that belongs more to Kurloz or Meulin than to him. The Capitol, he remembers. They'd danced around each other for so long and it'd taken the Capitol putting them back in the arena to get them together. It's always been the Capitol, helping them in every way they could ever want.

It must be the rebels, then. They must have told Chuck terrible things when they had him, they must have - they did torture him, Derek knows injuries and he knows the kind you get in battle and the kind you get when the only fighting back you can do is to spit blood in the face of the one coming near you.

Rage fills him, white hot, as though he's stealing the fire he watches die inside Chuck to fuel his own. There's a snarl caught behind the sharp edges of his teeth - but then Chuck touches him, and it's silenced before it comes out. His eyes go half lidded as he leans into Chuck's touch, soothed by it as he always has been.

Until Chuck says that, and Derek's eyes snap open again.

"Never. Not as long as you're still here." Nothing could ever take him from Chuck like that - and if Derek wasn't sure of that before, he is now. "Capitol helped me make sure of that. Made me better."

Made it so he could go up against the things the rebellion resorted to in order to cause destruction - made it so he could keep his pack safe, and that just draws his attention back to Chuck's injuries. His hand curls around Chuck's jaw, touch gentle even as a protective growl rumbles in his chest. "Who touched you?"

There's a wordless little noise of agreement, muted and muddled, idle. He's not really paying attention, caught in the faint sound of fighting in the distance. It rises, crests, muted by the crash of wave upon shore. Waves and screams and the beat of his heart, calling, calling.

But her words trail off, caught in the back of her throat, and Chuck's attention flits back. Brow furrowed, frowning, catching something written in her features he doesn't know how to handle.

"Understand?"

A question, but only just. He thinks he knows, traitor, her mind says. He knows this, this unknowing, this unsure dance. Rebellion fits him oddly, after a life shaped to take his father's place, watered with the blood of children he slaughtered. He's too District, too Capitol, to fit in with this Rebellion that is neither and both in an odd way. Maybe she's stuck there too, lost even more without the trappings of soldier to fall back on.

Yes, yes, this is it. Blood under nails and lies snapping between teeth. The tense line of his spine doesn't ease, but Chuck's laser point gaze flickers, away and back. The war calls him, beckoning, beckoning, but he stays. Pack, pack, he waits even under the baying of the hounds of war.

Her hands curl around each other, gripping tight. He's family, right? Friends but basically family. Their odd little codependent mess, them against the world, wrapped up in each other, in their house and their relationships, a refuge in a sea of people who don't understand. They understand each other.

Maybe he already knows. Maybe he can guess it or guess parts of it, like that troll who knew her half as well but guessed the whole of things. Her shoulders are tense.

"Understand what happened, I mean."

Her gaze travels up to him and flinches away. If he says anything now, she misses it, eyes on hands that are set to squeeze the life from each other. It's a grip on reality, a grip on something tangible when her head is full of thoughts that war more often than they agree.

"I was a rebel. Not like Thirteen. For Four. But--but Kurloz, he..." She trails off, trying to find the words. They come in fits and starts, her hands trembling and finger lacing, unlacing, digging nails into palms and the backs of her hands. "He fixed me--I mean he took me some place and they changed--made me better? Made me different. Think different. He was trying to keep me safe. He did, I mean. Or didn't. They know, my friends, they know."

Her words hang in the air. She said too much. Not enough. Will he blame Kurloz? Will he be upset? Will he care at all, without Derek? Was Derek the glue? Was she? Were they all relying on each other? Or were some hands gripped tighter? Her head swims, dizzying in its whirl of thoughts. The next words slip out soft, unsure.

"I don't fit anywhere now. But they get that. So I might go back to them."

You're dead, he wants to whisper, scream, crying and aching and needing. Derek, Derek, he's missed him more than anything, everything. Now, his heart beats, now, his lungs inflate, now, he lives. There's fear there, yes, an unknown, desperate and all encompassing, too much too much. He could lean in, taste the curve of Derek's mouth, lose himself in this ghost that settles beneath his hands like something real, tangible.

He could, he could. Derek curls him close, protective, and Chuck wants to surrender himself beneath those hands. But those eyes shutter, glass-cold and blank and he sucks a breath in through the calcite wall of his teeth, sharp sharp sharp. No, no. His hands tremble faint against the curve of Derek's cheek, slipping just so, pressing softly to the hollow at his throat, needing, needing.

The steady beat of a pulse echoes through him, soothing, except where it isn't.

"Better," He spits, laughs, bitter, breaking, agony clawing up his throat. "Better!"

He near howls with laughter, teeth gleaming bright and sharp beneath the shattered glass wreck of a smile. Derek's question is ignored, pushed aside with all that he's forgone, nothing so much as bitter pills, cyanide and arsenic, silver and almond and foam at his lips. He knows, he knows. Meulin's words slip, sharp and cold, slivers of ice beneath his skin, better, better--

What have they done, what did he allow? This is his fault, Chuck left, Chuck abandoned him.

But it feels too good, those gentle fingertips, even tipped in claws. Chuck swallows, heavily, blinking away anything that might become tears at the familiar rumbling growl echoing in the space between them, ringing through his ribcage. Derek was soothed beneath his touch, but here, now, Chuck's flame kindles once again. He rages, hatred written deep and dark and all encompassing in the lines of his face. His eyes gleam with fury and fervor, sharp sharp sharp.

"They lied." He hisses, hold tightening, suddenly, keeping Derek where he is, face cupped between hands like claws. Leans in, snapping and snarling, a caged wolf torn free, blood at his lips, "The Capitol stole you from me."

She's pack. She'll always be pack, part of the reason why he fights, why he's so grateful to what the Capitol provides for them. But she isn't supposed to be here - she'd been taken by the rebels and now she wears their colors, and he struggles against the urge to attack.

She looks at him in sympathy, so worried about what happened to him, and just like that he relaxes. It's Meulin, it's still her. Still worrying about him, just like the last time he was in the hospital when she threatened him with stuffed wolves, and he assumes she's talking about the blood splattered over him.

"Not mine. Most of it."

There's not a lot of clean patches on his uniform, between blood and wet sand, but he wipes his hands off anyway, and brings the sleeve of it over his mouth to scrub at his chin.

"I looked for you. I-" He doesn't remember why he'd stopped. There'd been anger and violence, but there's always anger and violence, and his eyes go unfocused for a moment as he tries to piece it together. He can't, and distantly he thinks that should bother him more than it does, but he just blinks back into focus. "They hurt you?"

His voice is more of a growl than ever, especially as he works around pointed teeth.

Derek wants to feel relief at having Chuck back, but he can't. He can't because there's something wrong, in the way Chuck trembles - in the way Chuck doesn't lean up for a kiss - and Derek doesn't know what to do about it. They've been separated too long, Derek knows that, the rebels got him and Derek wasn't there to save him, to protect him. He'd taken measures against that happening, but he was too late.

Chuck's been alone, and Derek doesn't know how to fix that. He could promise that it won't happen again, he can pull Chuck in and hold him tight until Chuck believes him, but - but there's something else, and Derek can't figure it out. There's something in the way that Chuck stares at him, angry and bitter and violent, and it all slips out of place.

It doesn't feel right. This isn't the way it's supposed to be, this isn't what the Capitol - the Capitol-

He loses his train of thought in the wake of Chuck's laughter. Better, of course it's better, he'd made himself into a better weapon so he can do what the Capitol commands. So he can protect Chuck.

But there's hate in Chuck's eyes as they look at him, a kind that Derek's never seen before - he has, he has seen it, only not this deep and he can't remember why because what could inspire this kind of hate before when the Capitol has been so good to them - and he doesn't know if that venom is directed at him or the Capitol and that terrifies him.

Because it's the same thing, he is the Capitol, but how can he be something Chuck hates that much when Chuck is everything?

"The Capitol can't steal-" -what belongs to them, what has always been theirs, but the words die on his lips before they make it out. He doesn't understand. It should be easy to say, because there's nothing he knows to be true more than that he belongs to the Capitol above all else.

But he can't say it, not with Chuck snarling in his face, holding on to him so tight - not when he remembers words whispered between them, promises made in the pant of breath and the touch of bare skin, sealed in the blood of every person who's ever tried to take them away from each other.

"Chuck," he growls again, and this time it's a plea, even if he can't figure out what he's pleading for.

His lips are harder to read around those teeth. His eyes turn vacant, turn hollow, and she thinks of that one time, that one time on the network where she saw Kurloz look through her. She wonders if that's how she looks. She wonders, despite desperately not wanting to know. Who did this to him?

Her hands come up, hesitate, then reach out to touch his cheeks. The blood isn't his. It makes her stomach churn but there are more important things. She wipes the blood from his face with her sleeve. He looked for her. Of course he looked for her. Of course he worried for her, like she worried for him. For them. For all those she left behind.

"I'm fi...No one hurt me. I purromise," and she hesitates, because the soothingly smooth part of her mind is telling her this is all okay. It's fine. He must have done this for the Capitol. The good and righteous Capitol, the one that brought them all together. Of course he would. They took Chuck, they took her, it's only right.

She really thinks she might be sick now. The thoughts settle so right, feel so right, when everything else screams. His fangs, the claws, the way he circled her like actual prey. Up close, she sees what she missed. The eyes reflect different. His ears make different shapes. They made him a mutt. She swallows hard to keep her rations down.

"Did the Capitol do this? Your--the changes?"

There's a moment of surprise when she touches him, but he settles quickly. He's gotten used to it, living with her - and if he seems even more comfortable with it now than he'd started to be before she left, he doesn't notice. She's the Capitol as much as he is, there can't be anything to fear from a simple touch.

And there's a wave of relief when she says that no one hurt her. It makes him feel a little better about not being able to go after her, whatever the reason - it must have been that he wasn't strong enough, that was why the Capitol held him back.

It takes him a moment to figure out what she's asking about, and then he nods.

"Needed to be better."

She'll understand, he thinks, but - he can't figure out why. He remembers snatches of a conversation, remembers one of the rebel trolls saying that she was different like Kurloz was different, that he knew that, and so she must understand.

The Capitol's only ever wanted to make them the best they could be.

Better.

Better is why they took all the wolf in him and made it shine. Shining eyes, claws, fangs, shining through his movements, through his actions, all a blinding harsh Capitol white. The Capitol made him the wolf in the arena and they made him one again. The Capitol can do what it pleases, can do anything it wants. Change a rebel to a Capitol flower. Change a smart boy into a wolf.

Her lips crumple into something like misery, something like fear. The thoughts he thinks echo loud in her head, beat against her skull. She's afraid. He makes them sing so much louder, sound so much righter. He makes them seem like the worst thing in the world, like they're chains, like they're knives cutting her world apart. They're both. They're neither.

"No--no you were fine Derek. Derek, you were fine the way you were. The Capitol..." She shudders, looks through him with that blank stare as her thoughts fight and burn and clash.

"The Capitol..." She speaks like it's torture, like the words burn her lips as they pass, "Doesn't make us better."

The air is sharp when he arrives, the scent of salt far stronger than he remember and unlike anything the lake around the Capitol could imitate. The ocean god hungrily snarls for sacrifice. If he could open his mouth, he could taste the coming storm just like he used to. It's the first time in years that he's stepped on these shores. He quells the urge to be ill. He crushes down any feeling for anything.

His boot clad feet lift drifts in the sand which whip back of white armor in the wind. He can see the Victor's homes, where Finnick used to live, old mags' place. His own old vacation home will be far on the other side of all of this, a trek from where the Districters live. Meulin's place will be around and Mituna's and Latula's. There are so many new buildings he doesn't recognize, a natural effect of living in a storm center. Yet, even now he sees signs of his brother written on the walls.

He thinks he hears shanties in the wind. What will we do with a drunken sailor...

He doesn't belong here. No. He's needed here. Just like his father before him. He has to stop this all. He has to bring it to end once and for all. Unlike his father, there's no notch in his helmet. But his walk over the sands and through the shacks part the waters of the people.

Weigh heigh and up she rises...

His hand goes for his knife, indigo and gold, sea and death. He twirls it and grips it readily. He spots a girl head around a corner.

Shave his belly with a rusty razor, early in the morning...

He runs on after her. For the glory of the Capitol. For the only thing he has left.

Isn't this her nightmare? Peacekeeper white appearing from nowhere, bearing down on her. She should have stayed near Chuck. No. Chuck is fighting. Chuck is somewhere else, the roaring sea in his ears, echoing the bloodlust, the anger. She has to protect herself.

She can't.

Her muscles freeze, fear and complacency warring in her head, leaping into her throat, choking off a yell for help. Here to help. That knife says otherwise. Run. Run run as fast as you can.

It's all she can do at first to take a step back, take another, turn. She slams right into a dilapidated wall, splinters beneath her fingertips. Run. She pushes off of it, breaks the plank, but she's trying. She turns back. She looks at them. Run. Stay. Fight. Give in. It's all fear, choking her. Her eyes flinch shut.

She's off. He follows. Those with the Capitol had nothing to fear of the Capitol. This proved it. It proved everything. And this time wouldn't be like the last. No more cringing over hits, no more begging to let him get in their heads and fix the source of the scourge. The Capitol doesn't care. The Capitol was never going to care.

If he wanted to make them happy, he needed to cut to the heart of the matter. He needed to forget all such foolish things like mercy. He needed to take faith. He needed to understand that all this, all what it came down to, was blood.

There was only ever one path to follow. He hunts her down it, rushing past buildings, around corners, crashing off and over broken boards what remind so sharp of another time of blood, blood, blood all over his hands. He should've know then. He should've accepted it from the start.

Finally, he rears around and she's there, his knife is raised high and he's already near to swing when those old familiar bits of green find him and squeeze shut. He freezes.

Nothing comes. No blow, no death promised to her over and over, again and again. Her whole body trembles. Her breath comes heavy and labored, not from running, but fear. She doesn't want to die. There's so much to do. There's people she wants to see. There's people she loves. She waits, knowing not how close they are, eyes still resolutely shut.

Nothing comes and slowly, she opens her eyes. She looks up. Fear still emenates from her, still renders her speechless. All those times she kept babbling in District Thirteen and this was all she needed. Fear. She wonders if Kurloz uses that secret. Fear.

They're just standing there. They're standing there, beautiful Capitol knife in hand. Is it someone she knows? Just someone who checked at that girl who spoke for the Capitol all decked out in rebel gray. There's no time to find out. They stopped. She has to take her moment. She has to survive.

She turns to run.

It's her. It's her, it's her, it's Meulin. She's alive. She shines off his visor and in his eyes. She doesn't fight, she just waits for him to kill her. Vividly, he sees the swings of a club, the blood, the sound of cracking bone, and he wasn't even there for that part. His hands shake. He can't breathe.

She takes that time to move, to run, away from him and he can't allow it. His hand snaps out, grasping her arm, stopping her. He grips tight, and his other hand fumbles the knife back in its sheath at his hip, missing once, twice, nearly mother fuckin stabbing himself. He deserve it. Oh god he'd deserve it all, maybe someone will kill him, he hopes.

He doesn't let her go. With the weapon away he's fumbling for the helmet next, pushing it clumsily off his head, wincing as it pulls hair, wincing at the crack it makes as it hits the ground. His breath is a loud rasp through stitches but she won't hear it.

Very suddenly, he regrets stopping her, and more that that, he regrets revealing himself. He lets go of her as if burned. He bends fast and picks the helmet back up, holding it to his chest as he steps back.

The world stops and it's all the hand gripping her tight, the helmet pulling off, hitting the ground. Is there anything besides those purple eyes? Anything beside that look, that wince, that breath pulled through stitches too tight.

A thousand thoughts flicker through her head. A thousand things clash. He's alive. He's fighting. He nearly killed her. He didn't. One rings clear. He became a Peacekeeper. Half of her tells her it should be an honor, a privilege. He's great, he's doing great things. More of her remembers all too vivid the event, not so far from here. Not so far from here, it happened. She remembers the dream, remembers him pulling the helmet free and seeing himself. She can't breath. Another face, hard, cold, cruel, too similar, it flickers over him and she flinches her eyes shut once more. The panic rises in her throat. She'd thought, back in her cell, that finding him again would be a dream. He'd kiss her and she'd tuck in against him, and he'd never let her go. She didn't know--how could she know? Breath. Have to keep breathing slow, even when her heart starts to race in her chest. It comes in panicked gulps anyways.

He's dropped her arm, holding the helmet tight to himself. Between them. She has to say something. She has to speak. It forces out between gasps.

"Kurloz."

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Wear a necklace of rope, Side by side with me.

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