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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He writes so much, says so much. The loss of her broke something deep in him, some core of him is shattered. Understanding comes to him anew but he doesn't really know. They were already reborn. Already someone new, someone shiny and new, with all the flaws of another life struck onto them. Rebirth wouldn't help them, keep them safe, keep them together.

But it's the last line that breaks through that haze, the Capitol fog he breathes into her simply by existing. He's crying. He sees nothing safe, nothing for them, sees nothing but the idea they might die together, at the end. Some morbid romantic fantasy, some idea that death is all they can share.

She reaches up. She drags him down to her. She kisses him, hard, with all the life left in her. She kisses him like she has something to prove. She lets him go.

"No. I don't want to die with you. I want to live with you. I want to make some place we can live together, some place we can be safe. I want Panem, I want this, I want more than death. For me. For you." It tears from her, making her head hurt. Those messy curls are gripped in both hands. She shakes her head, looks back up at him.

"I know--I know it hurts. Living hurts."

She takes her hold of him and he bends to her as he always has, simply allowing her to guide him as she would with him. His mage, his heart. What is he but a husk without her?

He aches under her hands so soft and gentle. It's a terrible clash of opposites, with her being there to touch on the outs while all the inside feels to be carved up and being carved further still. He wishes he couldn't feel a thing. He wishes she could take the pain and just throw it away and nothing would reach him again, no, not even love. No love, no rage, no fear, no pain. Beautiful miraculous death. The sweet mercy of a quick cut through his throat, letting all blood to flood.

He wishes to die. He wishes they were all dead, every single mother fuckin one of them, her and him and Derek and Chuck, Anna, Phi, everyone he's ever met, he hopes they all die.

She kisses him like she can stop it. It sticks in his head that maybe she fuckin can. He stares at her, listening, but unable to bear it. They were stuck in a loop. He could see it, their lives stretching on and on and on (and with the Capitol's work, maybe they really could live forever) and all in that time it's nothing but a repeat of the same old suffering, the same old wearing down like the waves wear the shore year after year. It's unending. It's suffocating. He wants to die. For the Capitol. Then all will finally be right.

But she won't let him. He could scream. His face twists with agony and fury that he can't throw upon her. It just stays inside and devours him. His forehead bumps down against hers.

It doesn't help. She's not sure why she thought it would. The pain burns through him, the broken bits of him trying to slip through his skin. What does she do? What can she do?

It's not like this for her. It hurt her but it never shattered. She's survived. Not always lived but survived. Kept going. Found the hope in things small and large. Found it in his arms wrapped tight around her. In the sight of him all a wonder at the beauty of ice and a sunrise.

He hurt her. It's something she can't deny. It's something she thinks about, in those moments of clarity. When he led her down a hall and into a room and coaxed her to accept her fate. She trusted him and he used that. He meant so well but he still did it. But that's not all this is. Trust can be repaired. Death, even with immortality up for bid, is awfully permanent.

She runs her fingertips over his face, gentle and slow.

"You can't die on me Kurloz. You'd miss so much. You'll never get to kiss me again. Never see our pack again. Never see the sun rise over that lake by the Capitol. Or swim in the ocean. Catch a fish. Make something beautiful."

It doesn't seem like enough. Small insignificant things. She's not sure what to say to make it enough.

She runs over his skin and he presses into it, eyes closing as she traces over his cheek. He listens to her speak, trying just as she always listened so well to him. Always accepted, always understood. Except in this case but he tries to see the images she paints.

Her kiss, sweet and soft. The pack, a family. The brilliant and beautiful colors of that sun rise. The white-foam water bowing to the steady earth, creating a line where the two could meet. All the creatures that swam beneath, a line asking to be toed. The shimmering fabric a sea of its own in his fingers. The needle ever steady in each stitch. He is ever so aware of his stitches.

His arms come up around her. He buries his face in her shoulder and holds her tight, near crushingly so. His love, his best friend. All those dreams could never be. The Capitol would never allow it. They were imperfect. They were sinners.

Would she notice if he grabbed his knife? Would it hurt her much if he drove it through her back and slashed his throat immediately after? No one would save them. No one ever did. They'd bleed out in the back alley and be forgotten to time. The red on her shirt wouldn't be all from his hand. It would just be because of it.

No. He steps back sudden, shakes his head. He didn't mute himself for the motherfucking Capitol. He did it for her.

He drags out his knife again and points it at her. Then with a quick slash, he gestures for her to go. Get out of here. He reaches for his helmet, puts it on. He belongs to Panem. Maybe it was about time they both realised he couldn't belong to her too.

He wants to leave her again. He wants her to go.

It hurts more than she expected. He holds her like the only rock in his storm, like life itself, then he pushes her away. She doesn't understand. It grabs hold, twists, and she's all too aware of the grip he has on her heart.

That impersonal helmet slides back on, hides his face from her gaze. His eyes turn from jewels to glossy impenetrable black. The knife points at her, points her away. She stares at it, a beautiful thing. Crafted for the sea. Crafted for him.

"Kurloz--don't do this. Don't leave me again."

I know how it feels to care about someone that much...How the thought of losing them can feel like standing on the edge of a chasm

Would she ever get the chance to see him again? Her hands curl tight at her sides. She doesn't move.

Most motherfucking bound together

Bound but it doesn't save them.

"Come with me? Please. We didn't--we didn't go through all this for you to push me away!"

He doesn't want to. He doesn't want her to go. He never wanted this, doesn't she know that? Doesn't she see? He had to. He has to. There's never been any mother fuckin choice in the matter. What either of them want has never fucking mattered. This is the way things have to be.

Long live the President, defier of death.

She can't see his pain with the helmet on. Far as she knows, he's got a smile stretched. He's exactly as he's meant to be. A vessel for the righteous to work the wicked business. Hands without a voice. Only the will of the high. What need has he for heart?

Yet he has it. A torture. A part of him crying out I love you, I love you... I'm sorry.

He's quiet as ever on the outs, as he should be. He doesn't know what they came all this way for. He thought, perhaps, there was some larger purpose involved, for the good of Panem. There isn't it. And she should know that.

He can't go with her. He's bound to his side. Eternally chained and there's nothing he can do about it. Or she. He shakes his head and gestures out again. She has to go.

Silence.

All that meets her is silence and her own reflection. It shows a face without a smile. Her lips tremble at her face stares back in muted colors. What does she do? Does she go alone? Does she offer to return to the Capitol with him? Neither holds appeal. Back to that underground prison with the people who hurt Chuck. Back to the Capitol with the people who did this to her. To him. To them all. She locks eyes with her own gaze. Perhaps his eyes are behind it, watching her own. Maybe he looks through her. Maybe he smiles, he cries. Not knowing, not even seeing the mask he held up, is the worst thing. She hates the peacekeeper white more than ever.

"You can't make me leave you. People keep making us do it. The rebels took me. Before--Be--Before it was..." She swallows the words, knowing he knows, knowing they both know it, "But we never just walked away from each other."

She looks at her hands, at blood smeared on them. It trails onto her clothing, her hair, her face. The smell of salt competes with the smell of blood.

"You weren't meant to follow in his path, you know? You always belonged to us."

Before it was his father, his mind finishes. Was it? Was it not his own choice to go? Latula warned him off and she'd been right. He would've removed himself had she said nothing at all. He wouldn't have gone back even if his Da had allowed him. Right?

She stares up at him, green eyes so bright and beautiful, the growth of the sea spread out over the sand and stone of the deep, spreading up high to the trees, binding everything together at its middles. The little light strands of her curls get lifted up with the breeze he can't feel but he can see it's there. And all rebel red is she.

He won't be the one what ends her if he's not going with her. Someone else will have to pull the trigger on them.

His eyes had gone down to her hands and now he's made to look up. His breath catches all with her words. Belonged to them. The pack. The family. District four with Derek, Chuck, Latula, Taria, Azhira, Anna, Mituna, and her. Not the shadows of his father, the mirror of his troll self. Not the Capitol's people who never gave a damn for him. Not the Capitol's will...

Not even Caiaborus.

The shrieking static in his head gets loud. It drags like claws, shrieks like nails. He steps back as his head shakes and he bumps up against the wall. Trapped. No way out of this but a shattering universe. He turns fast to see his own writing. His bleeding hand finds purchase.

PANEM

"Stop! Stop it, Da, stop! Please! Tuna, brother-" Why hadn't he gone faster?

FORE

His scream goes loud and he sunks down before her broken form. He did this. He spoke up and did this. His nails drag over the flesh of his neck

EV

Chuck's reaping. Derek's. Azhira's face looking up and seeing the blood run down his own, stitches run through.

He stops, his hand going to grip his head and finding the helmet instead. He did this. It has to be him. He has to be the one to go or else he'll destroy everything.

He's running before he even realises. He's choke and gag later, unable to breathe through a helmet and threads but he doens't care. He doesn't care anymore, he tried, he tried so damn hard to please, to save, but he couldn't, he can't, he won't even see his brother again, he's only caught the small glimpses of Mituna, he failed the Capitol, Caiaborus, he failed, what can he do but die, DIE, DIE, SLAY HIM, SHOOT HIM, KILL HIM ALREADY JUST--

The end comes upon him. Just a step more.

Derek's mind is a mess. Meulin and Herc had sent cracks spiderwebbing through the hold that the Capitol had on him - and then Chuck had taken a sledgehammer to it, and now nothing makes sense. It hurts every time he starts to think too hard about it, and everything has an undercurrent of the Capitol is right, the Capitol is good, the Capitol makes you better, everything you have is for the Capitol.

He can't convince himself that's wrong, even though he knows - he knows he didn't always think that way. Derek doesn't want to go to Thirteen; the idea of being with the rebels makes him sick to his stomach, a jumble of rage and violence and fear with no where to go. But he can't let Chuck go back there alone, and Chuck won't come back to the Capitol with him.

And deeper than anything else, Derek knows that Chuck is the only reason that Derek's still alive. Ever since he'd ordered him to survive no matter what it took, to come back before his first arena, it's been Chuck that Derek's living for. If Chuck insists that Derek needs to come with him, then Derek will go.

But he won't leave Kurloz. Derek'd come here with Kurloz and he won't go anywhere without him - he doesn't want to go anywhere, if it was up to him they'd all just stay in four, but that's not an option - and so he goes prowling.

It's easier now than it'd been before, and Derek's always been a good tracker. Even through the salt air and sand, the tang of blood and the sharpness of the explosives they're planting by the pier, he can pick up Kurloz's scent. And Meulin's, he realizes as he gets closer, and that makes him pick up the pace even if he couldn't be sure why.

But why doesn't matter, not when he gets close enough to see Kurloz running - right into the path of where they've got some of the explosives.

Derek doesn't think, he just moves. It's too late, he already knows it's too late, but that doesn't stop him from slamming into Kurloz, tackling him to the ground and using the momentum to roll them as far away from the blast as he can.

It's not far enough, but all Derek can do is hold on tight to Kurloz, curling his body around him to protect him from the worst of it.

Kurloz runs. He pulls at his helmet, he touches those words he wrote in his own blood, and then he runs. From her. The world seems cold. She watches him go, feet concrete and body lead. He ran from her. He left her. Her eyes still burn and sting with tears but beneath is numb. She stays there, silent, because what good would running after him do? After she asked and begged for him to stay. After she said all she could say.

Her gaze follows him, along the sand, up the path. Suddenly--things slow. His foot lands. A blur launches at him. The world explodes. She screams. The lead falls away from her, her feet drag forward. Things move all too fast now, everything except for her. Her legs don't seem to take her as fast as she wants, as far as she wants.

"Kurloz!" Not fast enough, not fast enough, none of this was fast enough, she's too late. He's dead, they're both dead, him and his savior and she's too late. She can't be too late.

The explosion goes off, nothing grand on the scale of the Capitol or even the rebels but for one single figure it's huge. It happens fast, not time to process it, not the sound, not the heat, not the flight that comes over sure as his body is sent back.

In some other world, this is it. The moment he goes from one to two. The moment he ends and begins. But he's got no care for that. He just wants the end. The threads, mercifully, will keep him from screaming.

He's dead. He's dead, he's finally dead, the game is finally fucking over. He hears ringing, but that will fade. He feels pain, but it will go. He'll be numb and empty. Only, with no god to greet him this time, having given all up for Panem.

He thinks he hears a scream. He thinks he hears his name. He thinks he feels someone wrapped around his corpse and a whispering voice in his ear, a laugh all amused, not thith time, KZ. Not your time.

His Helmet's been blown off. He can feel some of the armor on him has melted right onto his skin. It's burned, burning still. He should've died before he felt a thing. Is this what hell was meant to be? Why then was Derek here? And Meulin, he can see her, his eyes opening to the uncertain scene, the fire, her. No goodnights to sweet princes.

A burned hand reaches up to touch his imprisoner.

There's pain seared everywhere, but that's okay. Derek can take it. He always could, even back in his arena, and they'd made sure he kept that. It's only ever been useful, his ability to take his and keep going.

He thinks Kurloz is moving under him, but it's hard to tell with the heat of the fire pressing in all around them. So he just keeps holding Kurloz close as he rolls them both again, and again. The press of sand to burned and lacerated skin isn't a great feeling, but at least it puts out the fire.

When they're far enough away that the only heat he feels is the lingering warmth of melted armor, he pulls away, forcing himself to his feet. He stands there unsteadily for a moment, and briefly he thinks his legs actually might not be able to hold his own weight, but the moment passes.

Then he reaches down to haul Kurloz upright, looking over him to see how bad the damage is as he growls at him.

"Stupid."

Meulin stops short. Her wide eyes blink in the smoke, in the fire. They rolled and rolled and there finally they stop. Up goes Derek--Derek, why was Derek here? Had he known, had he just been there or... She waits a breath, waits for Derek to rise and reach for Kurloz.

"I thought..."

Her voice catches, a sob welling up somewhere beneath it all. She stands there, watching her love burned and her best friend just the same. It doesn't seem real. The smoke and soot around them, layered over those two, the fire still catching in the building beside them. She's afraid to reach out and touch him, afraid to feel the damage, afraid his open eyes are just her imagining and it's all over. It's not. It can't be. He moves. It seems unreal, her vision blurs with tears. This could have gone so much worse. It could have been the worst thing that happened to her and her fear of it catches in her throat, makes her voice come out soft and hoarse when it finally escapes her.

"Kurloz?"

Suddenly they're rolling and the sand is in the burns and Derek's weight is around him. He can't arch away from the pain, he can only offer a muffled cry. Somewhere in his blood, in the code of soul, he's got it all in him to keep on and on just as well but he doesn't want it, he doesn't want it up at all, even as the fire stops.

He feels himself shivering despite the heat all over his skin, an impossible heats in certain spots. The weight goes away but then all too soon, he's being hauled up. If he were smaller, he might dangle, but his frame has always been so much greater than he is even as he withered over years of slow starving, drugs, hoping...

Dead eyes lift slow, proving them not to be dead at all. His eyes meet Derek's. His hands cover in dried up blood, his neck, some singing of his hair... the melted arms goes over his heart and his forearms and some being upon his legs. Somehow, it's the marks of his face that stand out, hollowing his cheeks and eyes like he ought to be dead.

Where's his knife? Where's his mother fuckin knife, he had it and... and Meulin calls him. He turns his head her way, eyes round. His stitches have snapped loose and the smile is gone.

He moves sudden, clawing at Derek like he might be able to get away. "No," He says in that rasp that only cracks when it goes higher than a whisper, "No, NO! Let me go! Let me die!"

Derek doesn't both taking stock of his own injuries, not at the moment. The pulls of muscle and skin as he moves tells him that he'd been hit by some shrapnel from the explosion, and he knows his back and legs must be a mess, but that doesn't matter.

What matters is that Kurloz is alive, if not unscathed - he'd shielded him from the worst but not everything, and he tries not to let that be a failure. What matters is Meulin running up to them, the sound of fear in her voice.

He turns towards Meulin, to start to reassure her that they're both... well, not okay, but at least not in immediate danger anymore. But then Kurloz starts struggling against him, begging to be allowed to die, and Derek's gaze snaps back towards him, fangs bared and eyes wide.

"No," he snarls before he even thinks about it, a instinctive reaction just as much as tackling Kurloz had been.

It's a selfish response, maybe - he remembers Chuck trying to get him to promise that he'd keep going without him, and that he hadn't been able to. He remembers walking through the arena after that knowing that he was going to die, wanting it. Fuck he remembers that feeling, clear and momentarily untainted by anything the Capitol had done to him, and that shakes him even more. How could he have wanted to stop existing so bad if the Capitol was so great?

But even knowing - thinking he knows - some of how Kurloz might feel, he refuses to let him go, and his grip on Kurloz tightens, claws tangling in melted armor.

"You're ours. You can't go. We won't let you."

Her eyes dart between them. Their lips move but it's all at the wrong angle, all too hard, no one is turning to her to let her see. Kurloz's lips move and what is he saying? He's speaking. She feels--she doesn't know how to feel. Quickly, she steps in closer, puts hands on both their arms. She looks between them in panicked glances, catching the words 'won't let you'.

It's chilling. It's sad. It's sad how she doesn't need to know the exact words that Kurloz was saying because she can imagine it too clearly. The curves of his lips forming the syllables. She wonders what his voice sounds like. She takes in a breath and clings tighter. Her nails catch in the cloth of Derek's clothing, in the cracks in Kurloz's armor.

"Please don't..." Don't what? Don't die? Don't want to die? It seems so selfish to beg for that. It seems so selfish to want him to stay with her. She wants it anyways. "You're with us. It will be okay."

Derek snarls at him. Derek fuckin tells him no. Derek digs claws into him. His panic grows. It grows and grows with each word. Their's. Can't go. Not allowed.

The more his panic grows, the more it swallows his anger at the betrayal of it all. He's not allowed to die and now the fear is coming up to kill him only not, it won't give mercy. He can't breathe.

Dimly he's aware that Meulin is there now. She's clinging on to him too. Please don't...

And as his panic builds and gives way, everything within him cracks and crumbles. He can't, he can't, he can't go any more than this, he can't be any more than pieces, all the stitching he did to keep himself together has come apart. His head shakes and he mouths, I can't, I can't do this. He gets weaker, strung out between the two of them, only trembling with the earthquakes internal.

There's something reassuring about Meulin's touch to his arm, reminding him that he's not alone, that he doesn't have to try to fight his mind and Kurloz's all by himself. He's not good at fighting his own mind, not really - it'd taken Chuck to push him to it, and Derek holds onto that right now.

He shakes his head when Kurloz mouths that he can't, because that's not a good enough excuse. It never has been. Chuck hadn't let it be one for him, and Derek won't let it be an excuse for Kurloz.

"Too bad. Have to."

He's already got a good grip on Kurloz, it's easy to pull him even closer, to wrap one arm around him tight. They're both burned and Derek's injuries are screaming at him, but he doesn't care. He lets his other arm slide from under Meulin's touch, to wrap around her and pull them both in - so he and Meulin can pull Kurloz in. If his stitches can't keep him together anymore, then they'll have to do it for him.

"Hold it together," he orders, but after a moment he softens it with, "Help you hold it together. We're all we've got." He looks at Meulin as he says it, so she can read his lips and know what he's promising of them.

But also so he can add, "Chuck says I have to go with him. Won't leave Kurloz behind."

It's not hard to see the panic in his face, his eyes, the trembling of his limbs under her fingertips. Hold him together. They can hold him together. For a moment, she wonders who will hold her together. Them. All of them? Him and him and him and Terezi back in 13 and maybe others, but the family she chose most of all.

"You just need to breath Kurloz. Just breath in and out. Concentrate on it. Slow in and out. That's all you have to do right now." She says it soft, remembering how she had to say this to herself, to Terezi. His panic seems so familiar to her, who had gone through such things in the months between. The panic of putting Kurloz below or above the Capitol-- how had she not realized it might be the same for him. How had she not known? Carefully, she wraps her arm around his waist, hoping the grip is reassuring and not smothering.

"That's all."

Her gaze flickers up to meet Derek's, to watch his lips. Won't leave him behind. Good. She doesn't want to leave either of them behind. Her decision, the one she'd spoke of before, of never going back to 13, is made for her. She can't let them all go back alone.

"I know the way. You--you both need medical attention."

He wishes they'd hurt him. He wishes they'd do something other than this. It's torturous, carrying on. He flinches sharp under Derek's command, ducking his head like he'll be hit, even though he should be and he wants it.

Help, Derek offers, but he doesn't know how he or anyone could. He hasn't been able to help himself. Maybe he just means to walk, though to where he ain't sure.

It's Meulin what brings the best advice. Focus on breathing. If he must exist, then just that one simple thing. He doesn't get it right the first time or the next, but he keeps trying, just focusing on breath instead of life. He feels her wrap around him, so gentle even though he ain't deserve. He hangs on tight back to her. That's all. Just breathing.

His eyes close to block out the world. Where they're going he ain't know. He can't quite think so far ahead as to that. When he tries it brings trouble and he goes back to Meulin's words. She throws down the more and they confuse. He can't think where and how they'd get any sort of attention? The idea both appeals and appals.

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

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cw: suicidal ideation

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cw: suicidal ideation

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