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

[etcircenses]

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.

Comments

[sociopathicwolf]

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.

[theyoungperish]

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.”

[sociopathicwolf]

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?"

[theyoungperish]

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."

[sociopathicwolf]

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.